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MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 





MUSIC EDUCATION 
IN AMERICA 


What is wrong with it? 
What shall we do about it? 


BY 


ARCHIBALD T. DAVISON 


Associate Professor of Music at Harvard University 
and 


Conductor of the Harvard Glee Club 





HARPER @ BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 
NEW YORK 1926 LONDON 


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. Copyright, 1926, by 
Harper & Brothers — 
Printed in the U. S. A. 
First Edition 
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CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 
PREFACE . i it Ts RAT. pe MT I RED fag 1 

I Tse Backerounp or American Music Epv- 
hg a eee a ee er nares | 
II Tue Sponsors or Our Music-Traininge .. Ql 
Ill Music-Treacuine in Exementary ScHoors . 42 
IV Mosic-TEAcHING IN SECONDARY ScHoots .. 177 
V Mousic-TreacHiInc IN CoLLEGES ..... . 109 
Wie Oniwon Gren CLUBS. . 2 2... ew 1465 
VII Music in tHE Community. ....... . 168 
Pie eee es ke eas es ks w ow 188 
pee ny ee a. 198 
INVER Serie OC te, . 204 


PVPENDINO DE 02. uc es rap ase eee Ny. 





PREFACE 


LixE many other college teachers of music, 
the author of this book has become increasingly 
aware of the fact that music education as ad- 
ministered in this country is far from accomplish- 
ing what we have a right to expect of it. Thou- 
sands of persons are engaged in the profession 
of music-teaching, immense sums are annually 
expended for the maintenance of music in 
schools and colleges, large and powerful organi- 
zations of music supervisors meet from time to 
time to discuss better methods of instruction; 
and yet the American “people” grow in musical- 
ness much more slowly than is warranted by 
the outlay of energy, time, and money. 
‘The fundamental cause of this lack of advance- 

ment toward an appreciation of music by the 
great body of our people is to be found in the 
absence of a logical and continuous plan of mu- 
sic education based on the highest standards. 
Everyone who teaches music, and particularly 
those who have to do with the training of adults, 
must be impressed by the fact that the continuity 
which exists in other branches of education and 
which insures normal progress from elementary 


vu 


vill PREFACE 


schools through higher institutions is lacking in 
music instruction. For example, college students 
about to undertake the study of music as an ad- 
venture in self-cultivation are usually found to 
have but little grasp of musical technique and 
to be deficient in a knowledge of the simpler 
classics. But more alarming than this is the 
indifferent attitude displayed by many young 
people toward music. This attitude is wholly 
incomprehensible until one has made an exam- 
ination of the aims, methods, and material of 
modern American music education. For music 
is beauty, and a love of music together with the 
will to have a part in it is as natural to the aver- 
age human being as sleeping or breathing. 

We cannot ignore the foregoing facts, be- 
cause they are self-evident. With the past we 
can have, perhaps, no great quarrel, for we as 
a country have been too young and too much oc- 
cupied with the externals of life to concern our- 
selves much with music except in its superficially 
pleasurable aspects. Moreover, we have thus 
far escaped defeat, oppression, and such other 
experiences as seem to produce in nations a ven- 
eration for beauty and a desire to express it, 
not necessarily in the work of skilled composers, 


PREFACE ix 


but through the simple channels of popular elo- 
quence. With the present and the future, how- 
ever, we must concern ourselves, if we are to 
bring our people in large numbers to a real un- 
derstanding and love of music. Education may 
do its part, but only through a well-considered, 
progressive plan honestly and skillfully admin- 
istered, without hope of immediate result. A 
national sense of beauty cannot be artificially 
stimulated, nor is it infectious; the citizens of 
Philadelphia or Des Moines will not awake on 
Sunday morning to discover that as a result of 
having been exposed to ““Music Week” they have 
“caught’’a love of music. But wise teaching to- 
gether with the inevitable chastenings and revela- 
tions that history visits on every member of the 
world’s family will eventually invoke those mu- 
sical powers which we unquestionably possess 
in large degree. 

Therefore, while we need feel, perhaps, no 
humiliation over our past, certain present facts 
cry out to be heard above the din of our perpet- 
ual self-congratulation; and it is only in facing 
these facts, with all they imply, that we can so 
shape our education that in due course we shall 


x PREFACE 


take our place among the great musical nations 
of the earth. 

There are, of late, promising indications that 
American music-teachers are becoming aware 
of the fact that the harvest is woefully small in 
view of the great size of the field, and the ex- 
tent of its cultivation. The addresses and pub- 
lished writings of prominent supervisors in the 
public schools show clearly that the trend is to- 
ward music rather than machinery. In this prog- 
ress, a number of private schools and certain 
enlightened public-school systems have had a 
large part. We have but begun to move for- 
ward, however; and in some important particu- 
lars, such as the consistent use of good music, we 
are still highly deficient. We do progress, never- 
theless, and this book, not a history nor a the- 
oretical treatise, but a plain record of fact and 
experience, is written in the hope that a state- 
ment of our musical condition, together with sug- 
gestions for the future, based on our peculiar 
needs and the experience of older nations, will 
help to advance more rapidly those ideals of — 
music education which are only now becoming 
articulate here. 

Parts of this book are expanded from lectures 


PREFACE xi 


which I have given on the subject of music edu- 
cation; notably sections of Chapter VII, which 
are drawn from an address delivered in 1922 be- 
fore the Playground and Recreation Associa- 
tion of America, and afterward published in the 
official magazine of that organization. 

I am greatly indebted to my colleagues in the 
Graduate School of Education at Harvard, Mr. 
Thomas W. Surette, and Mr. Augustus D. Zan- 
zig, for advice and varied assistance. Also to 
Professor Edward K. Rand of Harvard, and to 
Miss Marjory P. Herrick, for invaluable assist- 
ance in the preparation of the text. 


ARCHIBALD 'T. DAVISON. 


Harvarp UNIVERSITY, 
JUNE, 1925. 





MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 








ance and harmony . . . and what sh 
of music, if not the love of beauty?” — 








CHAPTER ONE 


THE BACKGROUND OF AMERICAN MUSIC 
EDUCATION 


EDUCATION is the residuum of national char- 
acter. It shows more plainly than does anything 
else exactly what a country holds to be the real 
issues of life. To this principle America is no 
exception. Although she is lacking in the length 
and variety of experience which most other na- 
tions have enjoyed, her national physiognomy is 
as individual as that of France or England, and 
her education mirrors quite as clearly her meas- 
urement of values. 

Yet when we attempt to isolate our principal 
American characteristics, we are faced with a dif- 
ficult task, for in the mere matter of the extent 
of our territory we are as a people disjunct. We 
embrace wide varieties of climates, by which the 
inclinations and actions of men are markedly 
affected; and between sections of the country re- 
motely situated from each other, there is bred a 
rivalry which in its intensity might exist between 

1 


2 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


two nations. We are, besides, a blend of so many 
races and possess such a diversity of inheritances 
that we lack that racial cohesion which expresses 
itself in terms of a single trait. We have no 
dominant characteristic like the English solidity 
or the French vivacity. There is no name, even, 
by which we may call ourselves—save “Ameri- 
cans”—that does not give offense to some section 
of our country. So rapidly have we grown 
through immigration, and the sense of being part 
of us is so much a matter of quick assimilation, 
that newcomers on Tuesday disparagingly char- 
acterize Thursday’s arrivals as “foreigners.” 
With the World War arose immediate need of 
fusing together this multitudinous array of in- 
born prejudice and acquired opinion. No one 
would deny the necessity for the heroic efforts 
which American leaders made in attempting to 
achieve solidarity of purpose, nor can we be blind 
to the many benefits which, as a nation, we reaped 
from them; but they resulted in establishing the 
more firmly an ideal of citizenship which has led 
us into melancholy errors, political, moral, and 
educational—an ideal too often expressed in an 
affirmation of the infallibility and supremacy of 
our country in every field of human endeavor. 


THE BACKGROUND IN AMERICA 3 


Conceit is not a fatal fault. We are still a child 
among the nations, with quite the same character- 
istics and tendencies as are likely to invest the 
youngest child of any family—a child whose 
material prosperity makes it an easy prey to the 
temptations of boastfulness. Our habit of self- 
praise represents a phase of our national develop- 
ment and we shall doubtless outgrow it. But the 
by-products of conceit must indeed concern us 
gravely. Our revolt against discipline and our 
disregard of law grow largely out of a pervading 
impression that no one has the right to tell us what 
todo. We readily come to regard our particular 
achievements as all-important, and we too often 
glorify them as ideals in themselves rather than 
for the good they may accomplish. Such ideals 
are speed, size, wealth, and mechanical efficiency. 
Exaltation of means over ends, and individual- 
istic impatience of constituted authority, are the 
attitudes of immaturity; they betray a brief ex- 
perience of life; but they lead us, none the less, 
all of them, into sorry errors, and nowhere more 
so than in education. 

For example, our confidence in the power of 
wealth leads many of us to assume that because 
we spend gigantic sums of money on the training 


4 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


of youth, our systems of teaching are better and 
the results more desirable than those in other 
countries. Our success in certain branches of 
education—and it has been considerable—is not 
due, however, to any financial outlay, but to the 
knowledge and wisdom of a few leaders. 

Our reverence for skill and efficiency too often 
leads us to conceive of excellence in performance 
as the goal of music education; and we forget that, 
however tentative and unsuccessful active partici- 
pation may be, it yet has great value as a means of 
self-expression, and serves as the best approach 
to appreciative and intelligent listening. The 
same spirit has made of us a nation of onlookers. 
We scorn to be beginners and incompetents, pre- 
ferring to sit in grand stand or stadium, applaud- 
ing the achievements of some professional athlete, 
rather than to refresh our own bodies and minds 
with exercise. It were better to take part our- 
selves in almost any sport than to be content with 
only vicarious indulgence in physical exercise. 
No one will deny that there is in doing a thing 
oneself, even badly, a creative joy, a physical, 
mental, and emotional release that no mere look- 
ing on can ever yield. 

Now this predilection of ours for exceptional 


THE BACKGROUND IN AMERICA 5 


skill, and its corollary, our willingness to “let the 
other fellow do it,” which have proved very nearly 
fatal to the democracy of American music 
through our almost exclusive surrender to the 
domination of paid singers and players, appear 
again in our devotion to devices like the grapho- 
phone, pianola, and radio. The really devastat- 
ing feature of these is their absolute imperson- 
ality. Life in its most stimulating aspects is made 
up of the activities of individuals, not of ma- 
chines; and in art, which expresses life more fully 
than any other means, we are content to do away 
with the human variable in favor of a mechanical, 
impersonal agent. One of the fascinations of the 
presentation of a masterpiece by a great artist is 
that the interpretation and performance change 
with each rehearing. It may be that the singer 
or player rises, upon occasion, to greater heights 
than he has yet known; or that the interpretation 
of the moment may be better suited to the mood 
of the listener. What actor or preacher would 
consent to reduce his eloquence to a mechanical 
norm? Would he not feel that some accent or 
gesture, dictated by inspiration, might not at a 
moment lead him to surpass previous effort and 
to fire imagination as he had never before done? 


6 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


I once had a graphophone record of the Lord’s 
Prayer and the Twenty-third Psalm. The de- 
claimer’s resonant voice and significant inflec- 
tions charmed and fascinated me, and I played 
that record many times. Eventually, however, 
I began not to hear the great words of prayer 
and faith, but to listen for the oratory which 
overlaid them, and so missed the ideas which 
the words conveyed. But when one day I heard 
a clergyman recite quite simply and sincerely the 
Lord’s Prayer, I suddenly realized how destruc- 
tive it is to attempt to circumscribe beauty and 
truth within mechanical bounds. And if this 
be true of words, even of such words as consti- 
tute the Lord’s Prayer, how much less desirable 
is it to put limitations upon music, a language 
above words! ‘This, then, is perhaps the chief 
objection to mechanical means in music; that 
the element of personality is almost wholly 
lacking; for, of necessity, the composer is re- 
stricted to a single, unvarying conveyance of 
his ideas, while the performer is unconditionally 
committed to a rubber disk or a paper roll, with 
never a chance of rising to a higher eloquence 
or a more mature interpretation. No matter 
how many times one had heard Kreisler play the 


THE BACKGROUND IN AMERICA 7 


Bach “Chaconne,” one could never be inatten- 
tive to either violinist or work, because each 
performance is a new esthetic chance which may 
reveal unsuspected beauties not previously ut- 
tered with such eloquence. And wherever these 
mechanical appliances are used—in the school- 
room, the church, or the home—there is absent 
just that vividness, that human interest which 
comes only with a “live” performance. 

All this is not to discount the undoubted value 
of the graphophone under certain circumstances, 
but merely to call attention to its overuse. Be- 
cause it makes music so much more skillfully 
than we can, we have allowed it to deprive us of 
one of the greatest of human joys. 

Yet the graphophone gives us excellent dance 
music; it may sometimes be used effectively in 
education; and it supplies us at all times with 
that element which is meat and drink to us, 
namely, sound. Perhaps it is the restlessness 
of our time, or the absence of common interest, 
or the unattractiveness of mere conversation that 
makes the average company seek a background 
for even the simplest occupation. A circus must 
be a three-ring circus, for one ring cannot pos- 
sibly provide enough excitement. When we 


8 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


eat, we must have physical motion in the form 
of music accompanied by dancing and cabaret 
performance. Even the sacramental acts are 
not in themselves sufficient, but must be re- 
inforced by music. Music used to seem an 
impertinence at communion and during the mo- 
ment of the marriage ceremony, but we have 
become so accustomed to doing everything to 
music that nothing now appears complete with- 
out it. 

Certainly this is not an age in which great 
effort is made to stimulate the popular imagina- 
tion. Every newspaper story is fully illustrated, 
even to a cross showing the exact location where 
the event in question happened; moving pic- 
tures are amply provided with explanatory in- 
terruptions; each piece of music must have its 
story or its message; even the Bible must be 
reduced to the language of the day. We are 
growing into imaginative poverty, dependent on 
exterior stimuli as substitutes for mental and, 
particularly, for imaginative activity. Hence we 
dread silence, or even the fringes of it, as rep- 
resented by quiet talk and solitary occupation, 
and we take refuge in a background of sound, 
which relieves us of the burden of talking or 


THE BACKGROUND IN AMERICA 9 


thinking seriously. And here surely is one of 
the most cherished uses of pianola and grapho- 
phone, that they supply us with that necessary 
“going-on” which is an inevitable part of our 
waking hours. 

But the fascination which bodily skill and 
mechanical perfection have for us, and our pas- 
sive enjoyment of them, are not the only attri- 
butes which lead us into educational fallacies; 
there is also the fashion which we have for ap- 
praising the excellence of a thing in terms of 
size, concluding that, because it is the largest in 
the world, it is therefore the most desirable. The 
largest hall may have wretched acoustics; the 
largest organ may contain faulty construction, 
yielding a hard and unsympathetic tone; the 
largest chorus may sing lifelessly and without 
effect. Nevertheless, the mere magnitude of a 
violin orchestra of five hundred school children 
greatly pleases us, regardless of its musical ex- 
cellence, and a group of a thousand people cas- 
ually gathered into a park in the name of “com- 
munity singing” will, no matter how and what 
they sing, or whether they sing at all, be far more 
widely heralded than a group of two hundred 


10 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


singers who meet regularly to practice good 
music. 

How unwise is the substitution of the mass 
for the small and efficiently trained group was 
never more amply proved than by the conduct 
of singing in our army during the war. On 
all sides we were being told that every agency 
must be exerted to its full limit to prepare 
American soldiers for service. Other nations 
had devoted much care to the question of military 
singing, and evidence of its value, supplied us 
by armies both hostile and friendly, was not lack- 
ing. Obviously one of the primary needs of the 
soldier was prompt and accurate physical co- 
ordination; here at hand was music, the readiest 
and most effective means of gaining such co- 
ordination. But we proceeded to ignore that 
highly valuable fact, preferring to view the 
whole problem of army music bidimensionally: 
first, as an amusement; and, second, as an outlet 
for the emotions. Now under certain circum- 
stances the value of singing by mere crowds is 
undeniable, but we were faced with the particu- 
lar problem of getting ready in short order a 
vast body of men, who must be disciplined to 
undertake a vitally important task. The Y. M. 


THE BACKGROUND IN AMERICA 11 


C. A. and other agencies were attending most 
efficiently to the mere “crowd” and amusement 
aspects of music. Why did not our government, 
which went so far as to employ trained musical 
workers, conduct its program in a scientific man- 
ner instead of duplicating the work of such or- 
ganizations as are mentioned above? One can 
only speculate that our government thought it 
knew more about this branch of military work 
than other governments, and so devoted itself 
to the “mass’’ idea, to the neglect of much else 
that was important. In any event, three aspects 
of the case escaped us to a great extent: first, 
that any really valuable employment of music 
involves discipline, and much could have been 
done to improve co-ordination by drill in rhythm, 
both with and without singing, and by investing 
song leaders with the rank of army officers; sec- 
ond, that good mass singing is the result of the 
union of small groups which have been sepa- 
rately trained, just as good company or battalion 
drill is dependent on good individual drill; and, 
third, that a wise ordering of the musical program 
not only would have brought about better co- 
ordination in individuals as soldiers, but would 
have so influenced our men that the hosts of those 


12 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


who returned to civil life after the war would 
have borne an abiding love for music and a de- 
sire to participate in it. 

All these things were accomplished to some de- 
gree in camps where officers were far-seeing and 
where the song leaders had the requisite knowl- 
edge and enthusiasm. In one camp, at least, 
where the government song leader made use of 
only folk songs and good marching songs, the 
enthusiasm for them was so genuine that not once 
did a soldier ask to have sung those pieces which 
were in vogue elsewhere in the camp; and if 
frequency of request, and spirit in performance, 
are criteria, the most popular of all was a song 
the mention of which as a possible camp song had 
been greeted with derision by a number of camp 
song leaders, namely, the Netherlands folk song, 
the “Prayer of Thanksgiving.” 

A committee of citizens made conscientious ca 
vigorous efforts to improve the quality both of the 
music and of the instruction, but the government 
program was so circumscribed by an eagerness 
for results which could be measured in terms of 
thousands of men singing on a hillside, and by 
disbelief in our soldiers’ desire to sing anything 
other than cheap songs, that “official” singing by 


THE BACKGROUND IN AMERICA 13 


the army may be said to have had only the most 
superficial results. Here we failed, as we so 
often do in other departments of education, to 
ask ourselves whether or not the thing we were 
doing was, regardless of its benefits, the best 
thing to be done. 

Our American love of the sensational has also 
its effect on our attitude toward music. We take 
more interest in personalities than in artistic 
achievement, and we are devoted to the unusual. 
Although a visiting orchestra, unless it be led 
by a virtuoso personality, will have difficulty in 
filling a hall, a singer or player will command 
crowds. A bass who can drop an octave below 
the written note at the end of a song, the soprano 
who can sing high D (high C is now too common ) 
or perform amazing vocal acrobatics, will attract 
a public such as many an artist cannot claim. 
Out of perhaps a dozen comments on the singing 
of a well-known chorus, ten will note the ability 
of the singers to begin without the aid of any 
pitch so given as to be heard by the audience, 
while two will remark on the program or per- 
formance. School children who become ac- 
quainted with music largely through the agency 
of the graphophone will often remember who 


14 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


played a piece, but not what that piece was, nor 
who wrote it. What value can a beautiful voice 
or extremes of range have, if the singer employs 
mediocre music or performs in an unmusicianly 
manner? What is the use of teaching a chorus 
to begin without a given pitch, when the time 
spent on accomplishing that difficult feat might 
be expended in improving the singing or in teach- 
ing the members more masterpieces? Is not the 
ultimate excellence of a concert tested by the mu- 
sic itself and by the quality of the musicianship 
displayed, rather than by the personality of the 
performer or by tricks which divert attention 
from the music to the singer or player? 

Again, speed enters so largely as a factor into 
practically every department of American life 
that we have come to regard it as an end rather 
than as a means. Our difficulty here, as in the 
case of our glorification of mere size, lies in our 
lack of discrimination. Our labor-saving de- 
vices, our adding machines, our fast trains—these 
are indeed admirable, because they employ speed 
as a logical element in attainment; but to carry 
this principle to the extent we do in amusement 
“thrillers” such as the roller-coaster and the reck- 
lessly fast driving of automobiles, to say nothing 


THE BACKGROUND IN AMERICA 15 


of less strenuous fields such as art and business, 
‘is prejudicial both to the health and to the hap- 
piness of the nation. 

In music education this worship of speed is 
as indefensible as itis common. We constantly 
ignore the principle of “first things first,’ con- 
tenting ourselves with insecure and insufficient 
foundations, provided only we achieve a certain 
fluency in performance. In singing we make a 
fetish of “lightning” sight reading, and some in- 
strumental teachers consider speed the sine qua 
non of successful playing, even holding a stop- 
watch on their pupils in an effort to make them 
better the “time” of a piece. Before we plunge 
a student into theoretical study, we inquire only 
incidentally into his previous musical experience; 
and we boast of the fact that our children are do- 
ing harmony exercises while the children of other 
nations are still drilling in the elements of music. 
But theoretical musical exercise is practically 
valueless when it ignores the fact that an intelli- 
gent study of harmony must be preceded by some 
years of ear and eye training, supported by a 
knowledge of music gained through active par- 
ticipation. To offer harmony in the last two 
years of American high schools is a mistake; 


16 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


for the result is usually harmony which is merely 
mathematically correct, and such harmony is the 
emptiness of nothing. When organizing a class 
in violin-playing in the public schools, teachers 
often do not investigate a child’s musical fitness 
for studying the violin by testing the quality of 
his ear, but content themselves with ascertaining 
that the little finger of his left hand is of adequate 
length. Under the spell of our national quick- 
ness and cleverness we believe that we can leave 
out steps and eliminate processes, and still arrive 
at a full measure of education. No royal road to 
musicianship exists, however, and we shall not 
train our music students thoroughly until we put 
unnecessary speed behind us and adopt a method- 
ical plan of music teaching such as has success- 
fully prevailed elsewhere. 

Indeed, our persistent ignoring of the experi- 
ence of older nations has deceived us into think- 
ing that we may devise our own exclusive tradi- 
tions of music teaching. ‘This is not entirely 
reprehensible, because without experiment no 
progress is possible, but in America we alter both 
the substance and the name of accepted educa- 
tional formule, never caring, in our self-satis- 
faction, whether or not the rest of the world 


THE BACKGROUND IN AMERICA 17 


understands what we are talking about. We take 
an academic degree which, with its foreign 
equivalents, has long stood for general cultiva- 
tion, mental training, and the requirement of 
logic in its operation, and include in the prepa- 
ration for it subjects like swimming, cheer- 
leading, singing, and trombone-playing. Be- 
cause under one of our systems of musical 
nomenclature the altered fifth of the scale is 
called “si,” we change the commonly accepted 
name of the seventh note of the scale from “si” 
to “ti,” although that note has been “si” for cen- 
turies and will probably always be “si” else- 
where in the world. In order to teach children 
the minor mode before they are able to under- 
stand it as it is actually used, we tell them that 
it is formed by beginning on the sixth degree of 
the major scale, advancing upward an octave 
without chromatic alteration. ‘This is manifestly 
false, for the minor mode ascending exists in no 
such form. The first note of the scale of A-minor 
is not the sixth degree of the scale of C-major, 
but the first degree of the scale of A-minor, a 
scale quite independent of C-major except in 
theory, and the ascending unaltered scale called 
by teachers of school music the “natural A-mi- 


18 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


nor is in reality the Avolian mode, and if taught 
at all, should be so designated. 

Now the national characteristics which 
throughout this chapter have been cited as influ- 
encing unfavorably the progress of music educa- 
tion are not, of course, exclusively the property 
of America, for all countries possess to a certain 
extent some or all of them. Nor would we, if 
engaged in attempting to catalogue with some 
degree of completeness this country’s qualities, 
pass over those which are primarily admirable. 
Our industry has not only placed us among the 
greatest of the nations in wealth and productiv- 
ity, but has also yielded us scholarship of the first 
order; nor should we fear that the newer gen- 
eration will fall short of intellectual aggressive- 
ness and persistence. We are quick to seek new 
paths and efficient means with a zeal that ranks 
us among the leaders in educational reforms. As 
a nation we sometimes appear relentless in mat- 
ters of international finance, but we are as indi- 
viduals notably generous, giving with the utmost 
freedom to every needy cause. Above all we 
have a national sense of humor which is quite 
distinct from that of other nations. We are 
cheerful and optimistic, and if we take life at a 


THE BACKGROUND IN AMERICA 19 


terrible pace, at least we enjoy it and try to 
make others enjoy it. We are firmly loyal to 
the things we believe in and we work unremit- 
tingly for their success. 

But even good qualities are often two-edged 
swords; and many of these excellent attributes 
of ours are only potential. Our industry, if it 
lead us to a narrow appreciation of our own 
achievements, is not the best kind of industry. 
Our generosity, which argues sympathy with an- 
other’s point of view, is not fully effective unless 
it be a fundamental of our national philosophy 
rather than a trait of individuals. Our readiness 
to adopt the new must be tempered by a respect 
for the old. Our loyalties are restricted unless 
they include every worth-while thing. In short, 
America is a land of promise rather than of ful- 
fillment. But unless we honestly admit our fail- 
ings and make some serious effort to overcome 
them, our educational advancement is bound to 
be slow, particularly in those subjects like the 
arts, which lie far from our main interests. 

What effect our present philosophy may have 
upon our future course as a nation, or even what 
effect it may have upon education in general, is 
not for me to speculate. I am here concerned 


20 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


with only that part of our thinking which touches 
the life and progress of music; and the truths 
that spring from an observation of our national 
conduct of this branch of art may well give us 
pause. We could, if we would, learn much from 
those foreigners who come to make their homes 
among us. ‘To them our indifference to music is 
a mystery, and our musical inarticulateness a 
miracle; where Americans talk, these others sing, 
for with them talking is for the business of life, 
whereas music is a kind of common super-lan- 
guage wherein are expressed those feelings which 
transcend mere words. We ought to teach these 
newcomers our laws and customs, our speech and 
our efficiency; we ought to do all that we can to 
make them good American citizens; but let them, 
in turn, teach us the joy of music. In Heaven’s 
name let us not try to Americanize the arts. Let 
us rather look to the faults of our own education, 
remembering that the children of today are the 
fathers and mothers of tomorrow, by whom we 
shall be known either as a nation broad and wise 
enough to have cultivated art for itself, or as one 
still devoted to a mechanical and superficial ideal 
of beauty. 


CHAPTER TWO 
THE SPONSORS OF OUR MUSIC-TRAINING 


IN THE previous chapter I attempted to fix 
the background of American music education 
as it is revealed in our national philosophy. I 
shall be accused, I am sure, of being a pessimist, 
of displaying only the dark side of the picture 
rather than of stressing the fact that we are as a 
people quick to learn, full of enthusiasm and 
eager for progress. It is indeed true that our 
view of music education is constantly gaining in 
breadth; but we have before us a prodigiously 
long journey toward a real understanding and 
appreciation of music, and whether or not we 
reach that goal will depend in the long run not 
primarily upon our quickness to learn or our de- 
sire for progress, but upon the direction in which 
those valuable attributes are turned. For pro- 
grams of education, while they are, to be sure, 
the product of a country’s thinking, do not grow 
on trees, nor invent themselves, but are in reality 
initiated by agencies whose function it is defi- 

21 


22 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


nitely to shape and control them. At this point, 
then, I wish to undertake a survey of the three 
forces which here operate in that capacity— 
namely, educators, departmental specialists, and 
the public. By “educators” I mean those charged 
with the formulation and administration of edu- 
cational policies; such individuals are members 
of school boards, superintendents of schools, and 
headmasters. By “departmental specialists” I 
mean those engaged in supervising or teaching 
some specific subject, such as drawing, penman- 
ship, or music. 

First, it is the place of the educator to fix the 
relative importance of various departments of 
teaching and to assure himself that each subject 
is being dealt with in such a way as to fit in 
with the particular ideal to which education in 
general is committed. Second, the departmental 
specialist organizes the courses of study, to- 
gether with the method and material to be used 
in carrying them out. Third, public opinion, 
in turn, serves as a sort of practical check, rais- 
ing its voice from time to time in protest against 
what it views as too theoretical or a faulty 
balancing of values. Naturally, these three 
educational forces are not always in accord. 


SPONSORS OF OUR MUSIC-TRAINING = 23 


Supervisors and teachers of special subjects, for 
example, will often feel that the educator is 
slighting their particular branch of learning in 
according to it so little time. And public opinion, 
while it is not much concerned with how music 
or reading or penmanship is taught, or with the 
material used, will come to grips with the educa- 
tor on questions of general policy. 

In the nature of things this must be so, for the 
aim toward which the educator strives is often 
quite different from that which public opinion 
would seek. Education in the best sense is 
never content with things as they are, and a 
reactionary educator is a contradiction in terms. 
With regard to both the subject taught and the 
method of teaching it, education is forever seek- 
ing through improved technique to heighten the 
mental capacity of youth, to quicken perceptions, 
and to lay the foundations of a broad and pro- 
ductive culture. 

But public opinion holds fast to the time-hon- 
ored and the familiar. “Why,” it asks, “are the 
Dalton Plan, the Project Method, and Progres- 
sive Education so much better than the systems 
under which we were brought up? There is lack- 
ing in a good deal of your teaching the funda- 


24 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


mental element of discipline, which is essential 
to every life and which must be early and con- 
stantly insisted on. During our school years we 
were told just how and when to accomplish a 
task, and if we neglected to do it, we paid the 
penalty of our failure. Such things as learning 
arithmetic by pretending to operate a store and 
by keeping its accounts seem to us like highfalu- 
tin nonsense. Why not learn facts in the 
quickest way?” And education answers that it 
believes that going to school ought to be made in- 
teresting to children; that the systems used are 
beneficial for the training of character and for 
the development of the ability to express oneself 
in the various terms of human intercourse. Edu- 
cation holds, too, that the methods employed not 
only facilitate rapid learning, but, by making 
vivid the thing which is learned, fix it firmly in 
the memory. Furthermore, education assures 
public opinion that through all this seeming in- 
direction and unfamiliar procedure children will 
Jearn to think and act with independence. 
Now for all their apparent dissimilarity, the 
respective attitudes of each side are essentially 
one, in that both arrive at their conclusions 
through knowledge. But the educator gains his 


SPONSORS OF OUR MUSIC-TRAINING 25 


through what seems to him scientific investiga- 
tion; while public opinion depends upon ewperi- 
ence. “Is the kind of education you believe in 
actively successful?” is the question which each 
side must ultimately answer; and each is per- 
suaded that it can honestly reply in the affirma- 
tive. Education holds that it has been scien- 
tifically proved, through measurements and tests 
conducted with mathematical definiteness over 
long periods of time, that certain subjects and 
methods yield better results in terms of progress 
than do other subjects and methods investigated 
with equal care. On the other hand, public 
opinion maintains that it has learned through 
experience that certain things are more useful 
than others, and these things, obviously, children 
should be taught. 

At first sight it would seem that there could 
exist no safer foundation for an educational sys- 
tem than one based upon a combination of every- 
day experience and scientific investigation; but 
it is the general acceptance of this doctrine that 
has worked and is working such desolation to mu- 
sic in this country, for the reason that faith and 
vision too often do not illuminate our experience 
and our investigation, with the result that we fail 


26 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


to perceive the really worth-while products of 
music education. And these desirable results 
are a love for the best music and a will to partici- 
pate in it. That we are not progressing rapidly 
on the road to these ideals may best be shown by 
an examination of the types of experience and 
knowledge that are yielding the sort of music 
education commonly found in this country. 


The educator who has, as evidence on which 
to pass, the actual results of music-teaching, but 
who usually claims to know little of music ex- 
cept as it is related to other subjects in the gen- 
eral field of education, is likely to be interested 
in finding out what children have a natural apti- 
tude for music, and he therefore sets himself to 
devise tests which will determine whether or not 
it will be profitable for this child or that to re- 
celve music instruction. If one asks about the 
teaching of music appreciation, the educator will 
describe the wonderful spectacle of a thousand 
children listening to an orchestra; but not just 
listening—oh no, these children were actually 
writing down the titles of the compositions that 
were being played; and—what was more remark- 
able—the orchestra did not play the whole piece, 


SPONSORS OF OUR MUSIC-TRAINING 27 


but only the first four measures; and 71 2-3 per 
cent of the one thousand children got 8134 per 
cent of the titles correct. Now that is the kind 
of experience upon which the educator often 
bases his scheme of music-teaching. He believes 
in something he can test and measure and reduce 
to mathematical formule; systems which show a 
high percentage of correct results “work,” and 
those which are not measurable or do not show 
such results as may be definitely listed are 
worthless. | 

But there are some who do not agree with the 
educator. They are interested in the talented 
child, of course, but they believe that school music 
education ought not to discriminate against the 
child who does not prove so theoretically brilliant 
when tested by the measuring stick of educational 
psychology. They believe that the object of 
music education ought to be to lead children— 
all children, if possible—to a love of good music 
and to a desire to have a part in that music; and 
if William Smith’s coefficient of musical expan- 
sion is —28, and the educational doctor tells him 
that his pitch sense is deficient, these optimists 
will still believe that life may yet yield this boy 
much joy in music even though he fails to deter- 


28 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


mine the niceties of pitch variation by a grapho- 
phone test that would plunge many a trained 
musician into a nervous frenzy. Nor are skeptics 
of the educator’s wisdom much impressed by his 
tale of the memory contest: they will want to 
know, first, whether the pieces were worth 
memorizing; and, second, whether the children 
had been thoroughly acquainted with the whole 
composition or with just the first four measures. 

No, in spite of what the educators say, I ven- 
ture to think that the most vital feature of music 
education has not yet been tested, for that feature 
is the love for good music, which each person may 
gain in varying degree; when we can measure a 
child’s patriotism or his affection for his mother, 
we may be able to devise a really valuable test 
in music. Many of the originators and protag- 
onists of educational methods are scientists or 
administrators by training, and apparently they 
cannot perceive that the best results of music- 
teaching cannot be arrayed in rows of figures and 
added up to a numerical total. Although they 
would be frank to admit that the real fruits of 
education are reaped only in maturity, they are 
not able to see why music cannot be taught in 
such a way that the progress of the child as he 


SPONSORS OF OUR MUSIC-TRAINING = 29 


passes from grade to grade may be interpreted in 
cold, hard averages; and they have little use for 
a subject which, in its most important phase, 
namely, music appreciation, is acquired by 
absorption rather than by direct teaching. 


Let us inquire now as to the contribution to 
music education made by public opinion. Ignor- 
ing all our traditional self-esteem and our stub- 
born insistence on our own musicalness; forget- 
ting for the moment the large sums of money we 
spend on music, not only for our own pleasure, 
but for the musical education of our children as 
well; admitting, as we ought, that a high per- 
centage of this musical “going-on” has not the 
slightest connection with music of any value 
whatsoever—let us ask ourselves the question, 
“Just how much is the average American citizen 
interested in good music?” A critic has lately 
ventured the opinion that hardly one per cent of 
our people really concerns itself with music of © 
serious worth. If we are to believe the evidence 
of our senses, this is an almost extravagant esti- 
mate, provided that by being interested in good 
music we mean attending concerts, joining 
choruses and orchestras, and organizing the musi- 


30 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


cal resources of homes into music-making groups. 
Among the nations we stand first in our giving 
for music; but the mere contribution of money 
toward music is not at all the same thing as being 
actively interested in music. And it is this in- 
difference that is deplorable, for an enthusiasm 
for beauty manifested as far as possible in actual 
participation would add much to our national 
happiness. 

If it is unfortunate that we evince no great 
desire to take part in music, it is yet more re- 
grettable that as a nation we appreciate really 
good music so little. The average American does 
not care particularly about having his children 
taught good music, because he has not experi- 
enced it himself and has found no use for it in 
his life. Probably he likes jazz (most of us do— 
the best kind of jazz), and he may occasionally 
attend a “girl-and-music show.” Sentimental 
ballads and waltz-songs about roses and the 
Southern moon are what he would call “about 
his speed.” But good music is a frill, a non- 
essential, and from an educational point of view 
he is ignorant of it, indifferent, or sometimes even 
hostile to it. The only time an American inter- 
feres in the course of music education is when he 


SPONSORS OF OUR MUSIC-TRAINING 31 


discovers that in a school music-reader “but” 
has been substituted for “and” in the verse of 
some song which glorifies his native land, or 
when some one interested in a campaign for bet- 
ter music displaces with a piece of good music 
one of the four tunes which he remembers sing- 
ing asachild. Our “plain citizen” looks on music 
in an eminently practical way; he conceives of 
music education in terms of “music lessons,” and 
he deeply sympathizes with the boy who is forced 
by his ill-guided parents to practice the piano 
hours on end. As a matter of fact, he usually 
views music as an essentially feminine under- 
taking, just as did the American mother who 
rejoiced that her children, being boys, would not 
have to “have” music. We need only compare 
the catalogues of men’s colleges with those of 
women’s colleges in this country to see how much 
more music is considered woman’s part than 
man’s, or to observe in our choruses and choirs 
the preponderance of women over men. Our 
citizen thinks of music in applied terms—in 
terms of playing and singing; and consulting his 
own experience, he is likely to declare the teach- 
ing of the appreciation of the classics to be 


32 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


“bunk,” and to characterize the classics them- 
selves as “high-brow.” 

No clearer example of our indifference toward 
the teaching of good music to children is to be 
seen than in the case of church music. Any 
musically educated person will admit that 
ecclesiastical music offers the most abysmally 
melancholy spectacle of any of our American 
musical activities. And yet, how shall we raise 
the standard of church music unless we first im- 
prove the quality of Sunday-school music? 
Week after week, year in and year out, little 
children are taught the same inane and futile 
hymn tunes that their parents learned, and in 
church listen to trite or vacuously showy anthems. 
This is not only because the parent resents the 
rebuke implied in teaching his children better 
music than he himself knows, but also because 
sentimentality and association enter very largely 
into the religious experience of the layman; to 
such a degree, in fact, that he is unwilling or 
unable to perceive that his child may mount to 
just as high spiritual flights and achieve quite as 
much religious joy, if propelled on wings of 
music with which the parent is unfamiliar. And 
some of us even dare to believe that one may be 


SPONSORS OF OUR MUSIC-TRAINING — 33 


led to an attitude of religious receptivity by good 
music much more readily than by music of an 
inferior type. 

The writer has in mind a Sunday school where 
all the instruction was planned out on the high- 
est plane. The school being undenominational, 
teachers were chosen solely on the basis of effi- 
ciency. Although Unitarian children were being 
taught by teachers with strong Methodist pred- 
ilections, and Fundamentalist sons and daugh- 
ters sat docile beneath the admonitions of Mod- 
ernist instructors, the sole feature in the conduct 
of the school to which the parents objected was 
the only one over which there could not possibly 
have been a reasonable controversy, namely, the 
music, for music, being merely suggestive and 
never dogmatic, could not teach anything either 
false or true. But the offense lay in the employ, 
ment of good music (and consequently music for 
the greater part unknown to the parents): 
chorales, plain song melodies, religious folk- 
songs, and the best hymns. How surprised those 
worthy citizens would have been had they been 
told that they were educational obstructionists. 
And yet such was actually the fact; they were 
denying their children an experience of truth 


34 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


and beauty, both of the very essence of real 
religion, in favor of an acquaintance with cheap 
and sometimes even sacrilegious music, largely 
because these parents could not be induced to 
respect or find virtue in that with which they 
were unfamiliar, and the use of which constituted 
a reflection on their own taste. 


While the attitude of both educators and pub- 
lie toward music education, sacred as well as 
secular, is not ideal, there are in their cases ex- 
tenuating circumstances; but what shall be said 
of the fashion in which the music teacher and 
supervisor have discharged their responsibility ? 
Educators, as a rule, make no claim to musical 
knowledge; they ascribe to music a certain place 
in the field of learning, depending thereafter on 
the music supervisor and teacher to administer 
the matter profitably. Public opinion is usually 
indifferent so long as it appears that too much 
time is not accorded to the study of music. 
Here, then, is the golden opportunity of 
those in charge of music-teaching. Presumably 
acquainted with music at first hand, versed in its 
history, theory, and technique, trained to identify 
what is valuable and to transmit it convincingly 


SPONSORS OF OUR MUSIC-TRAINING — 35 


to others—surely it is these music supervisors who 
should lead us into the blessed state of being 
musical. The extent of their failure is proved 
by the present state of the public musical taste 
and by the fact that those who have just passed 
the elementary school age give slight indication 
of an increased interest in good music. 

It is sometimes claimed that to standardize 
music education, with a consequent certification 
of teachers, would improve the quality of the 
instruction. ‘This is not true, I believe, because 
the effect of standardization in art instruction is 
to locate the accepted requirement at an altitude 
where the average rather than the best knowledge 
is the norm. ‘To force competent teachers to use 
only the materials and methods known to medi- 
ocre musicians is a self-evident fallacy. Informa- 
tion such as is asked on the typical examination 
paper for certification will not greatly impress 
the musician; he will not consider it valuable to 
know the compass of the piano, or the name of 
an American composer of overripe melodies. 
The unhappy fact is that far too many American 
music-teachers are only half educated; their 
actual knowledge of the elements of music is 
often surprisingly small and their taste is patheti- 


86 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


cally undernourished. For such evils certifica- 
tion is not the cure, but study is. 

Music-teachers are divided into three groups: 
“private” teachers, who instruct students sepa- 
rately in a studio or in the student’s home; 
music supervisors and teachers who deal with 
music in public and private institutions which 
precede college; and college teachers of music. 
Obviously, it is with the first two classes only 
that I wish to deal in this chapter. 

Applied music-playing and singing occupies 
the majority of private teachers. ‘They will 
argue that in order to be retained they must pro- 
duce results; they must give fleetness of finger, 
beauty of tone; and they must use pieces which 
will please both student and parent. No private 
teacher, they say, unless he be financially inde- 
pendent, can afford to do otherwise. ‘There is 
much truth in this argument, but not so much as 
at first appears; for there is a considerable num- 
ber of private teachers in this country who have 
succeeded in persuading pupils and parents that 
to gain musicalness both in understanding and in 
performance, even though it be acquired slowly, 
is vastly more satisfying than to play salon pieces 
or to sing ballads in a manner to charm the 


SPONSORS OF OUR MUSIC-TRAINING 87 


domestic circle. Technical exercises in them- 
selves have only a technical value and are much 
over-emphasized; every detail of practical tech- 
nique may be found in good music, and it is 
through such music that teachers should work. 
Both the formal and the technical structure of 
the compositions studied should be explained and 
the historical background made clear. 

Now to teach in this fashion, as a musician 
would, requires a deal more knowledge than is 
possessed by most private teachers, but their case 
is certainly no worse than that of the average 
American school supervisor of music. This 
branch of the profession is drawn to a consider- 
able extent from young men and women who 
play or sing agreeably (or perhaps very well), 
but who do not care to run the economic risk of 
giving private lessons, choosing rather a position 
which guarantees them a regular salary. Cast- 
ing about for entrance into this particular field, 
and at the same time wishing to begin their work 
as soon as possible, they usually choose an insti- 
tution which advertises to fit them to be teachers 
of music in schools. Here, often in a course last- 
ing but a few weeks, the candidate acquires a 
knowledge of method, child psychology, and 


38 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


other auxiliaries to teaching. Yet very little is 
done to cultivate his taste or to acquaint him 
with the masterpieces of music. Presumably he 
is fully equipped in these particulars; as a matter 
of fact, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred he 
is not, although he is sent out an accredited super- 
visor, to have in charge the musical training of 
children. We ought not to be disappointed at 
the results of school music instruction when we 
consider that these supervisors are thought to be 
capable musicians as compared with the grade 
teachers, who carry on most of the musical in- 
struction and who are usually confessedly igno- 
rant of music save for the slight and superficial 
training offered them in normal school. In what 
estimation would a teacher of French be held who 
could not conjugate the verb avoir? or a teacher 
of arithmetic who could not do long division? 
Or what should we think of a supervisor of litera- 
ture who selected for his course of study the - 
“best sellers” and popular magazines? And what 
result should we expect to get from the use of 
such literature, if the actual teaching of it were 
confided to those whose literary horizon was not 
sufficiently extended to embrace even the “best 
sellers” and popular magazines, and who could 


SPONSORS OF OUR MUSIC-TRAINING — 39 


read English only with difficulty? To carry 
this parallel into the field of music education 
involves us in no great exaggeration. There are, 
of course, competent and even expert teachers 
of music in schools, but the instruction is gen- 
erally inadequate, and the blame for this must be 
laid largely at the door of those schools which 
seriously pretend to prepare students for the 
profession of music-teaching. 

Harvard University, long recognizing the 
need of adequate instruction in this field, has, 
within the last three years, established in the 
Graduate School of Education courses designed 
properly to equip students for work in every 
department of music education. The university, 
however, will not give credit to everyone who 
wishes to take these courses. If the student, 
whether a college graduate or not, desires to take 
the final examination for credit, or to receive a 
recommendation from the instructor in the 
course, he must first pass an entrance examina- 
tion in music. Should he fail in many of the sub- 
divisions of this examination he is not allowed 
to take the final test in the course in the same 
year, but he may enter the class as an auditor. 
If, however, he passes the major portion of the 


40 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


entrance examination, he is re-examined in the 
spring upon minor details, and, if successful, is 
permitted to take the final examination. A re- 
view of the requirements of this entrance test as 
they appear in Appendix A will show that no 
advanced degree of musicianship is presupposed ; 
nor is the knowledge demanded greater than 
ought to be possessed by any one who intends to 
teach efficiently even elementary music. 

In the courses themselves no particular books 
or systems are emphasized; the object of the 
work is simply to furnish those who have a 
reasonable amount of musical knowledge, with a 
broader view and the means of making them- 
selves articulate to others. Even in a few years 
the work of the Graduate School has demon- 
strated to what extent prospective and active 
supervisors and teachers are deficient in musical 
knowledge, for out of twenty-one candidates for 
admission, only three have passed uncondition- 
ally the first time. Such a record is indeed appall- 
ing when we consider that in the figures quoted 
above are represented music supervisors and in- 
structors, public and private school teachers, as 
well as students of music. 

Finally, then, and most emphatically, our 


SPONSORS OF OUR MUSIC-TRAINING 41 


music supervisors, music teachers, and grade 
teachers need more and better instruction; our 
educators need to learn that music does not lie 
in the same area with mathematics and domestic 
science; and when all this has been accomplished 
we shall be on the road to creating an intelligent 
and interested public opinion, and to putting an 
end to the vicious cycle of uneducated and un- 
imaginative maturity, leading generation after 
generation into an unmusical state like unto its 
own. 


CHAPTER THREE 
MUSIC-TEACHING IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 


THE whole range of teaching may be thought 
of as a ladder upon which at various points are 
stationed those occupied in erecting the entire 
educational structure. Some are engaged in 
laying the foundations, others are concerned with 
intermediate stages, and at the top of the ladder 
are those whose task it is to finish the work. It 
is these last who teach in colleges and graduate 
schools, who instruct in the higher branches of 
learning, and who prepare men and women for 
the professions. 

But up and down the length of the ladder of 
music-teaching there is lamentation. Those at 
work on the middle structure protest that the 
work below them is imperfectly done and will 
not bear the weight which ought to be put upon 
it; while those at the top affirm that the whole 
edifice is wabbly and that what is required of 
them by the plans will not fit upon the rest of the 
building. To this the unhappy toilers at the 

42 


TEACHING IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 43 


bottom reply that music is an art; that properly 
to erect the structure of music education demands 
not only particular gifts, but also extensive train- 
ing; and that it is not fair to intrust such work, 
especially the laying of the foundations, to edu- 
cational jacks-of-all-trades. | 

In all these complaints, but chiefly in the latter, 
there is much justice; and there is, too, a reveal- 
ing example of the topsy-turvy way in which we 
often attack important educational problems. 
For instance, we assign to kindergartners and 
grade-school teachers, many of whom are un- 
fitted for such work, the duty of establishing 
the fundamentals of musical knowledge and 
taste, which of all the tasks of music education 
is the most crucial; while to the expert we confide 
those students who survive the rigors of element- 
ary training. The chief cause of this inverted 
thinking with regard to music-teaching is that 
we are prone to consider ourselves as musical as 
other nations. This is certainly not the case, but 
the explanation of our unmusicalness is not to be 
sought, as is often urged, in an absence of favor- 
able “background”; for, had we a sound philos- 
ophy of music education, and teachers skillful 
and wise enough to put our wisdom into prac- 


44 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


tice, we could arrive at such a state as exists in 
countries which may truly be called musical. 

If, indeed, there is to be a real American 
democracy of music, not an aristocracy of the 
gifted, we must see to it that every stage of music 
education is carefully and skillfully constructed, 
especially that part upon which the entire de- 
velopment rests, namely, the elementary schools. 


Now what ought we to anticipate by way of 
accomplishment during this period? Probably 
not much that will appeal to the typical educa- 
tor, for these years will give little more than the 
promise of fulfillment, with a correspondingly 
small yield in “results.” Yet we have a right to 
demand that at this time instruction shall be so 
conducted as to bring about in children, first, a 
desire to take part in music; second, sufficient 
ability to satisfy that will; and, third, the basis 
of a real and abiding musical taste. 

But it is not to be expected that children will 
interest themselves in music unless enough time 
is devoted to it to make the association pro- 
ductive. Deficient as are our systems of music 
education, and under-educated as are many of 
its prophets, public-school music-teachers should 


TEACHING IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 45 


not be wholly blamed where so little opportunity 
is given them. Im this respect, as in many 
others, our public schools would do well to 
pattern themselves upon private institutions. 
These are less subjected to political inter- 
ference, less restricted by popular prejudice, and 
are therefore almost always in the front rank of 
educational progress. ‘The freedom from tradi- 
_ tional forms of educational obstructionism, which 
they enjoy, is their only excuse for being; and it 
enables them fearlessly to experiment, and with 
equal promptness to accept or reject. Private 
schools are the educational advance guard, and 
it is their function not to supplant public educa- 
tion, but to furnish public schools with the fruits 
of their enlightenment. In the amount of time 
devoted to music study, in the conduct of such 
study, and in the musical material used, the 
majority of private institutions are more pro- 
gressive than public schools. 

Because the time allotted to music study is so 
meager, it is doubly unfortunate that music 
periods are generally not more profitably em- 
ployed. School music-teachers devote far too 
much time to the technique of music and far too 
little to music itself. To create in students the 


46 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


ability to sing music at sight has for so long been 
the end and aim of a large percentage of instruc- 
tion that it has grown to be a fetish. Perhaps 
the one encouraging indication in the present 
situation is the growing tendency on the part 
of music supervisors to lay emphasis on the sing- 
ing of songs by ear rather than on mechanical 
exercises or sight reading. ‘This evolution in 
thought has been brought about largely, I be- 
lieve, by recognition of the fact that in spite of 
the labor and time devoted to sight reading, com- 
paratively few children actually achieve the dis- 
tinction of being real sight readers. If, in the 
time given and with the educational resources at 
their command, music educators cannot by the 
end of the grammar grades produce in quantity 
what they have been striving for, obviously some 
other path should be chosen. But there are other 
and more potent reasons than the one just men- 
tioned. Music is a language, and, while not 
capable of conveying ideas with the definiteness 
of words, it is none the less the speech of the 
emotions, a speech vivid and comprehensible in 
proportion to the interpretive powers of the 
imagination. 

Wherefore it is manifest that some experience 


TEACHING IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 47 


of that language (and it is not a foreign tongue) 
ought to precede any study of its technique, just 
as one learns to talk before one reads. It is ar- 
tificial and unnatural to plunge little children 
into the business of reading music before they 
have really come normally into contact with 
music as a language. 

To limit the singing of songs uncomplicated 
by drill and note-reading to the kindergarten and 
first grade is to restrict the experience of music 
which is the necessary prelude to music education. 
It would be much better to extend the period of 
rote singing to include the kindergarten and first 
three grades, or at least the first half of the third 
grade. And here let me reiterate that this con- 
viction grows not out of any abstract conception 
of the apportionment of the various departments 
of music education throughout the school system, 
but solely out of our musical needs as a 
nation. ‘The adoption of the opposite method, 
namely, the exaggeration of drill in music-read- 
ing, is, I believe, responsible for much of the 
musical lethargy which grips us, since by our 
insistence on this drill we have literally destroyed 
in multitudes of children the natural love of 
music, which is a common inheritance. 


48 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


We are not alone in this error, however, for 
France, with all her great musical tradition, is 
not really a singing nation; though she possesses 
a far more efficient system of musical training 
than ours, she puts so much stress upon the tech- 
nical side through mechanical exercises in solfége 
that mere accurate musicianship too often takes 
the place of a love of singing. In Germany, on 
the other hand, where the study of the technique 
of music is delayed to a point which our music 
supervisors would consider fatal, and where at- 
tention is centered on the teaching of beautiful 
songs by rote, singing is a recognized part of 
national life. 

The whole principle has been excellently stated 
by Mr. Cecil J. Sharp as follows: 


Children can learn and sing songs by the light of nature 
and, if left to themselves, will do so of their own accord— 
just as they pick up the greater part of their own language 
without any formal instruction or outside assistance. 

Now the music-teacher will, if he be wise, make the 
most of this natural provision. Postponing for the moment 
all technical instruction, he will forthwith set his children 
to sing songs by rote, and to memorize both tunes and 
words. For not only will this give the children the oppor- 
tunity of expressing themselves through the medium of 


TEACHING IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 49 


music, but, if the songs have been wisely selected, it must 
inevitably also arouse in them a love for and interest in 
music and thus lay the foundations of a cultivated musical 
taste. 

This, at any rate, is the procedure in Germany, where, 
by common consent, the average musical taste is immeasur- 
ably higher than in England. In the primary schools of 
that country the children, in the first years of their musical 
education, are taught and made to memorize the folk and 
national songs of their own country to the exclusion of 
every other kind of music; while all technical instruction 
is withheld until they have attained the age of eleven 
years. What the German educationist sees and what I 
venture to think we have not yet fully grasped in this 
country is that the development of taste is of infinitely 
greater educational importance than mere technical profi- 
ciency; and that consequently a large repertory of mem- 
orized songs of undoubted and agreed artistic excellence is 
the best musical equipment for young people. 


We would, of course, not wish to follow the 
German ideal of exclusive devotion to the folk 
songs of a single country—even our own, did we 
possess a sufficiently large body of such melodies 
to occupy all the musical attention of our chil- 
dren—for music education should concern itself 
primarily with beauty and not with nationalism. 


1 Folk Singing in Schools, Cecil J. Sharp (published by the 
English Folk Dance Society). 


50 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


The same method of placing technique before 
experience, demonstrated in unintelligent insist- 
ence on piano and violin practice unsupported 
by adequate experience of music, has definitely 
turned many away from the enjoyment of music 
through their own efforts. Nor is this all, for in 
the departments of both applied and school music 
we attempt to achieve our aim through the use 
of exercises, mechanical and artificial, dry and 
deadening to an interest in music. These exer- 
cises are not music, but sublimated musical 
technique designed, to practice children in certain 
rhythmic and melodic formule; and yet, as has 
been said once before in this book, there is no 
principle of musical technique which cannot be 
found in good music, and which cannot be much 
more effectively taught through that music than 
through some stilted and uninspired exercise. 
The more enlightened makers of school music 
books are recognizing that fact, and it is to be 
hoped that the very general adoption of the 
“song-method,” as opposed to the old-fashioned 
“exercise method,” is not far off. But the mere 
substitution of songs for exercises will not suf- 
fice unless, first, the songs are learned as songs 
and not for note-reading purposes, as at present 


TEACHING IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 51 


is too often the case; and unless, second, the 
music is unqualifiedly good. 

But many music supervisors dread this talk of 
“experience first.” It at once puts upon the 
grade teacher the necessity for teaching her class 
a great many songs by ear. She must, of course, 
learn these songs herself, so that she can sing 
them convincingly to the children. She must 
know them so well that she can instantly detect 
any error in note or time, or any sensible devia- 
tion from pitch. Many grade teachers can sing 
very little and they resent the added labor in- 
volved in learning so many pieces of music. 
How much easier for them, then, after sounding 
the pitch pipe, to ask the children to sing from 
notes the song or exercise! In case of correction, 
if the teacher recognizes the fault, line and 
measure may be referred to, the offending pas- 
sage described in terms of “do-mi-sol,” and the 
entire transaction concluded without the teacher’s 
singing a note. 

Many music supervisors fear also that “experi- 
ence first” means the putting off of their beloved 
sight singing to such an extent that the full 
measure of reading knowledge cannot be reached 
within school limits. But they are wrong, for 


52 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


the study of technique advances much more 
rapidly just because of that experience. Would 
anyone assume that a child who had learned to 
speak his language would not learn to read more 
quickly than one who had never spoken? Let 
us suppose that during kindergarten and the 
three primary years a child has learned by ear 
a large number of songs. He has had no notes 
before him, but has literally absorbed the music. 
Texts have been supplied him after he has ad- 
vanced sufficiently to read them. He is, through 
a normal acquaintance, master of a considerable 
amount of musical technique; he has sung songs 
involving many and often complicated rhythms, 
together with intervals of every kind. ‘These he 
has learned quite naturally in the course of sing- 
ing by rote. The development of his musical ear 
has not been retarded by a too early concern with 
the mechanics of measuring intervals, and he has 
covered a much wider and more complicated field 
of music than would be possible if each detail of 
his progress had to be learned as technique in- 
stead of being absorbed as music. During the 
last half of the third grade, or at the beginning 
of the fourth, the music of certain very simple 
songs which he has already learned by ear and 


TEACHING IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 58 


which contain the first steps in musical technique 
is set before him. He sings these, looking at 
the notes the while, and perceives at each point 
the coincidence between symbol and sound. He 
cannot make an error in reading these tunes, be- 
cause he already knows them; so that there is no 
mistake to be dealt with laboriously, as is likely 
to be the case in the reading of new music. After 
he has completed the foregoing operation, he 
turns to one or two songs with which he is not 
acquainted but which include approximately the 
same technical problems as exist in those with 
which he is familiar. He then proceeds to read 
these new melodies, applying to the task the 
knowledge which he has gained from a reading 
of the old ones. There will be mistakes, of course, 
but these do not require the construction of un- 
usual exercises for rectification; the incorrectly 
sung intervals may be isolated from the song it- 
self, practiced, and then returned to their origi- 
nal setting. 

There are two very real advantages in this 
method: the first is that the experience gained by 
rote singing quickens musical perception to a 
marked degree and lays the groundwork of an 
appreciative musical sense; the second appears in 


54 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


the fact that during the later years of rote sing- 
ing, rhythm apart from interval may be taught 
as a principle connected with the melodies sung, 
so that at the time of actually undertaking to 
read music, many rhythmic problems will have 
been solved. Consider the plight of a child, his 
experience of rote singing limited to the kinder- 
garten and perhaps one primary year, set to solve 
simultaneously melodic and rhythmic details. 
By teaching rhythm separately, this confusion 
may be avoided. Moreover, rhythm is itself an 
experience and cannot be taught as theory. It 
must be learned through physical motion, and 
from the first, children should be made to act the 
rhythm, either by marching, by tapping, or by 
some such device. In the third grade simple | 
rhythmic formule may be taken up in connection 
with familiar songs; since the tunes have been 
learned by rote, no difficulty will be experienced 
in reading the intervals and all the time may be 
devoted to rhythmic problems. Clearly it is not 
possible to include all questions of rhythm before 
note-reading is undertaken, but by the method 
just described the fundamental principles may 
be learned and all the simpler problems disposed 
of. The difficulty here is the same which besets 


TEACHING IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 55 


_ so much of our music education, namely, that we 
try to do two things at once without properly 
preparing each separately and supporting the 
whole with adequate experience. 

By far the most reasonable argument against 
a whole-hearted devotion to sight reading is its 
comparative uselessness. Even if supervisors 
were successful in achieving that much-desired 
feat, how many children, when they are grown 
up, have any occasion to exploit it? The value 
of sight reading as a process in the development 
of co-ordination, and its spectacular appeal, are 
undoubted; but in making it the end rather than 
the means we have over-exaggerated a detail of 
music education, which is practical only for the 
few. 

Here we perceive one of the difficulties by 
which music is constantly hampered; it is so gen- 
eral in its application, so adaptable, and so 
friendly to many undertakings, that we are for- 
ever confusing those undertakings with music 
itself and calling them by music’s name. Com- 
munity singing, dance music, church music—all 
these make use of music in some form; but the 
purpose is always the advancement of some other 
object, and consequently the art itself is nega- 


56 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


tived and often hopelessly debased. So it is with 
sight reading; supervisors often care not what 
is read at sight, provided the task is correctly 
performed. Many of us have had the experience 
of being asked by a proud music-teacher to im- 
provise on the blackboard some collection of 
notes involving complicated technique in order 
that he may display the sight-reading virtuosity 
of his class. ‘These haphazard compositions are 
not music, but they serve as a double demonstra- 
tion of the glorification of misdirected effort and 
of an attractive method of wasting time. There 
is a vast difference between reading music and 
reading music at sight. Choral conductors who 
are interested in developing in their organiza- 
tions a taste for good music will welcome ade- 
quate readers, but may deplore the presence of 
sight readers; for such persons are prone to look 
upon the exact performance of a piece of music 
at first sight as the goal, and, having reached 
that, will consider the task triumphantly accom- 
plished and further rehearsal more or less a waste 
of time. Sight reading is of undoubted value if 
it is a means to an end, and if it offers the oppor- 
tunity of gaining a first-hand knowledge of good 


TEACHING IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 57 


music; but as an educational objective, it repre- 
sents one of the worst of educational fallacies. 

What would be our opinion of a teacher of 
literature who, upon asking a student to read for 
the first time a sonnet of Keats, felt that all re- 
quirements had been fulfilled when the student 
had correctly pronounced each word of the poem, 
even though its meaning were quite hidden from 
him? Now the reader of music will make mis- 
takes and be forced to go over his part many 
times, but in doing this he learns not only the 
notes, but the music, with all that is implied in 
that term. The music reader is not spectacular, 
he requires time, he sometimes tries the conduc- 
tor’s patience, and he does not cover as much 
ground as the sight reader; but he gets an inti- 
mate knowledge of the spirit and significance of 
the music, that too often escapes his more skill- 
ful brother. 

It may be safely asserted that for all purposes 
of music in this country, reading taught by “as- 
sociation” and preceded by a profitable experi- 
ence of music would be sufficient. This method 
means simply the reading of many songs, ordered 
progressively, with only the necessary explana- 
tion of technical principles, and without lengthy 


58 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


practice of detail. Many a person who has had 
almost no training in music has learned to read 
very well merely by singing a great deal of music, 
at the same time observing the printed symbols. 
And this practice, if preceded by a sufficient 
period of rote singing reinforced by reading 
practice of familiar melodies, would supply the 
average child with all the music-reading ability 
he will ever need. 

Sir Hugh Allen, Director of the Royal Col- 
lege of Music in London, in an address before 
the Islington Choral Society, stated the case 
exactly in a few words: 


You can learn to read music in exactly the same way 
as you learn to read or write. You all know the words of 
“Auld Lang Syne’: do you know the notes? Instead of 
singing “Pom, pom, pom, pom,” sing the notes as they are 
on the pianoforte. If you practice that with all the tunes 
you know, there is hardly a tune in the world that you 
could not read at sight.* 


With the introduction of part singing in the 
fifth grade arises the question of arranging music 
in such form as to be adaptable to limited musi- 
cal intelligence and restricted vocal range. Such 


1The Musical Times, November 1, 1924. 


TEACHING IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 59 


adjustments are made necessary by the fact that 
there exists little good music originally cast in 
two or three parts that is possible for children’s 
voices. Current music education is guilty of two 
errors in its solution of this problem: first, in the 
use of invented exercises; and, second, in making 
its arrangements harmonic rather than con- 
trapuntal. This latter procedure is but another 
example of the readiness of music-book compilers 
and supervisors to ignore the facts of music in 
favor of the artificially contrived standards of 
music education, for the greatest music has been 
conceived contrapuntally, with harmony em- 
ployed largely for contrast. ‘This is particularly 
true of choral music, where, because of limited 
range, near-uniformity in color, dynamic restric- 
tion, and lack of physical flexibility, composers 
are forced to employ every means to make the 
music vital. 

Too little is done in schools to develop a me- 
lodic sense in children. Many of the songs used 
are little more than mechanical collections of 
notes, bearing only the outer semblance of 
melody; besides, grade teachers are always 
lamenting the absence of a piano, with which to 
furnish the harmonizations that they imagine 


60 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


are necessary to stimulate the children. But if 
the melodies are really beautiful, they need no 
accompaniment; in fact, most folk songs never 
had an accompaniment until a sophisticated 
generation found one desirable. Little children, 
however, are not grown-ups—for them a lovely 
melody is sufficient; and it is preferable, espe- 
cially in the case of small groups, that the melody 
should be left to make its own impression. 
Now, under present conditions involving the 
general use of inferior songs, and with emphasis 
laid on ability to read music at sight, harmonic 
part singing is the obvious solution, since har- 
mony makes little use of large or difficult inter- 
vals or of complicated rhythms. There is also 
much that the singers can take for granted; a 
certain inevitability in the progress of the music, 
which breeds confidence in the performers. They 
feel sure that they will be called on to do nothing 
which will create an unfamiliar musical situation, 
and often they are even able to guess their note, 
provided they cannot find it through the ordinary 
means of reading. The use of such music does 
not afford real training in concerted singing; the 
best choral singing involves dissonance as well as 
consonance, rhythmic independence in each part 


TEACHING IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 61 


rather than a comparatively uniform rhythmic 
motion. In other words, each part is an indi- 
vidual musical personality responsible to the 
whole but independent of it. ‘To a limited degree, 
such contrapuntal writing is both possible and 
desirable for children in the later grammar and 
junior high grades, and, if preceded by the type 
of teaching elsewhere commended in this chapter, 
will serve as a logical introduction to choral 
singing. 

In the present craze for memory contests and 
the so-called teaching of music appreciation in 
the grammar grades, singing is beginning to be 
neglected. School orchestras and bands, too, 
valuable as they are, often usurp the time which 
ought to be devoted to choral practice. ‘This is 
indeed a pity, for membership in instrumental 
groups is possible only to the specially endowed, 
while the intelligent singing of good songs during 
school life is for everyone, regardless of unusual 
gifts, a profitable investment in culture in that it 
establishes an interest in music which becomes 
fully articulate in maturity. 

Moreover, if the music is good, it will yield the 
third desideratum mentioned at the beginning of 
this chapter, namely, the ground-work of a 


62 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


permanent and discriminating taste. Upon this 
subject I wish to speak with the utmost definite- 
ness and conviction, because in the matter of the 
selection of material dwells by far the most im- 
portant issue in American music education. I 
suppose there is not a musician in this country 
who would concern himself very greatly with 
methods of teaching provided he could be sure 
that the music employed was uniformly the best. 
That it is not is due to a number of causes, not 
the least of which is the inability of many Ameri- 
can supervisors and teachers of music to dis- 
criminate between the good and the bad. 

It is not pleasant to make such an arraignment, 
but no good will ever come of uttering half- 
truths. Our music education has too long been 
cursed by a bland acceptance of incompetence 
buoyed up by low standards; and a frank 
acknowledgment of the fact ought long ago to 
have been generally made. ‘To many school 
musicians the great composers are but names, 
and while undoubtedly many supervisors are 
acquainted with the classics, yet they do not know 
them to the extent that they see all other music 
in perspective, with a consequent and immediate 
revulsion against all that is second-rate. These 


TEACHING IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 63 


supervisors may be able to analyze formally a 
Beethoven sonata or a Bach fugue, but the elo- 
quence contained in this music, its vital and mov- 
ing power, is as unknown to them as the most 
distant stars. If this were not so, most of the 
music books used in our schools would inevitably 
vanish. 

When taxed with the obviously poor quality 
of school music, the common refuge of many 
supervisors is in the statement that in educating 
children to love good music one must employ 
inferior but, to the child, immediately appealing 
material. In other words, to ascend Parnassus 
one must first tunnel under its base. No more 
vicious educational fallacy than this was ever 
uttered ; the way to right is never through wrong, 
and it is infinitely harder to create in children a 
sense of the beautiful in music when once they 
have associated with mediocrity. There is noth- 
ing more uncontaminated, more receptive, than 
a little child’s musical taste. He will accept 
whatever music is supplied him, but if his experi- 
ence is inaugurated with the type of music used 
in most American kindergartens, there is not 
much to be anticipated by way of later enthu- 
siasm for good music. It takes an unusually 


64 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


strong superstructure to survive a weak founda- 
tion. This assertion that children must be 
wrongly educated in order that they may be 
rightly educated is a simple admission on the 
part of school musicians that they do not them- 
selves really understand or love the best music, 
for this music exists in the simplest forms, 
suited to individuals of all ages from kinder- 
garten through college, and has been in many 
countries, including our own, accepted and 
loved by children. 


The claim is sometimes made that the com- 
pilers of school music books ought to be blamed 
for the poor music which is offered American 
school children. This, I think, is hardly justified, 
inasmuch as it is the music supervisors who create 
the demand, and the editors who furnish the sup- 
ply. It is true, of course, that book companies 
do not undervalue advertising, with the result 
that they are prompt to include songs by Ameri- 
can composers not for reasons of musical value, 
but because the teacher may thus point with pride 
to the name of a native musician side by side 
with that of some famous foreigner. Nor does 
it escape the astute publisher that the presence 


TEACHING IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 65 


of songs by distinguished contemporary com- 
posers furnishes a strong selling point for his 
books. Yet it must not be forgotten that the 
composition of a song for children is the most 
delicate, the most formidable task a musician can 
undertake; and that in any case, the moderns, 
with their sophistication and technical involu- 
tions, are the last ones to attempt it. The best 
music for children was never composed—it grew 
quite naturally from experience into the form we 
know as folk song; but folk tunes generally can- 
not be copyrighted, and are therefore of less 
value to the publisher than a specially composed 
melody. 

Moreover, the inclusion of made-to-order 
school songs enables the publisher to satisfy the 
demand of the supervisor for sight-reading ma- 
terial. Clearly enough, sight reading requires 
drill in particular intervals and rhythms. Now 
if the supervisor’s taste were always good, and if 
it were always a matter of principle with him to 
see that his pupils came into contact with noth- 
ing but the best music, he always would demand 
of the publisher that the songs be selected from 
good music, such as folk songs and the easier 
classics. But to find music which illustrates prin- 


66 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


ciples like the tonic triad and the triplet involves 
research, and, as has just been pointed out, the 
material cannot be copyrighted. How much bet- 
ter then to pay some one to write a song which 
will include only what the child may be expected 
to read easily! Real music is not made in this 
way; wherefore our music books are storehouses 
of material which in no sense presents an experi- 
ence of beauty, nor serves as a stimulus to good 
taste, but which is admirable matter for sight- 
singing practice. If these songs were really 
valid and impressive, would not some of them 
have survived into this generation? But what 
songs other than the patriotic ones that we sang 
years ago at school are now being sung by chil- 
dren? That publishers in the quest for some- 
thing new and more attractive from a selling 
point of view are constantly bringing out books 
of new songs should not seriously affect the life 
of music which had appeared in previous collec- 
tions, if that music were good. A school song 
which had vitality enough to endure through 
two generations would never be missing from 
any collection issued by its publishers, and the 
right to use it would probably be sought by other 
firms as well. 


TEACHING IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 67 


We are very apt to use the term “good” music 
in contradistinction to poor or even bad music. 
What we as teachers ought to insist on in music 
education is the best music only. Such material 
is not necessarily difficult or complex; witness, 
for example, folk songs, plain songs, and the 
Reformation chorales. Of these the first and 
third exist in forms adapted to school use. By the 
“best” music we mean, in general, music which 
has stood successfully the test of time. There 
may be, of course, modern music which we our- 
selves are confident will be classic in the future, 
but it is fair to assume that if we supply our chil- 
dren with the fundamentals of music apprecia- 
tion, as represented by the classics, they will in 
time be able to judge for themselves of the worth 
of music which we now term “contemporary.” 
At any rate, there is enough music proved and 
tried to keep teachers occupied, without running 
the risk of advocating something which in spite 
of our liking for it, and our confidence in its dur- 
ability, may not persist. 

The practice of arranging instrumental tunes 
with words cannot be too harshly condemned. 
An instrumental melody is conceived by the com- 
poser in instrumental terms for some special 


68 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


medium; nor does he intend it to be invested with 
a particular idea, as is the case when words are 
fitted to it. ‘There are enough beautiful vocal 
melodies without borrowing from instrumental 
sources. 

School song books should contain, then: first, 
only the best material; and, second, only music 
originally intended to be sung. In the kinder- 
garten and the first three or four grades folk 
songs will supply almost all that is necessary. 
These have always been essentially the property 
of children and have served many generations 
as the soundest introduction to music. They are 
not the expression of one person’s particular 
view of life, nor are they a record of his emo- 
tions; but they represent the experiences of 
groups and nations, uttered with such unmistak- 
able eloquence that they address themselves to 
grown-ups and children alike. 

In the later grades, in addition to folk tunes, 
the simpler songs of Mozart, Haydn, Schumann, 
Schubert, and Brahms are admirable. With the 
departure from unison music, contrapuntal ar- 
rangements of folk songs should be used, as well 
as part songs by the above composers and others 
of similar worth. But this comparatively simple 


TEACHING IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 69 


music is not the only material available for chil- 
dren of elementary-school age; for we are very 
apt to misjudge the musical receptivity of chil- 
dren when we conclude that only music which is 
childlike is suitable for them. Children can sing 
and enjoy the greatest masterpieces like the 
choral melody from the Ninth Symphony of 
Beethoven, the simpler movements of the Brahms 
“Requiem,” or choruses by Bach. During the 
last year a number of schools have been singing 
choruses from the “Requiem” with great enthu- 
siasm. Lying beyond childish comprehension, 
obviously, neither text nor music is to be ex- 
plained to these children, but their experience of 
beauty gains rather than loses by this fact. For 
there is a mystery about truly great music that 
every musician feels; and children know it, too, 
and they ought to be permitted to come beneath 
its spell. For children merely to sing Brahms 
or Bach is enough; comment is neither fitting nor 
necessary. ‘The performance may be poor, but 
the eloquence of such music is not lost, though 
we, in our grown-up sophistication, may think 
so; rather, the gate is opened to new and un- 
suspected avenues of beauty, which, in time, 
these children may enter with full understanding. 


70 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


Now there is one matter quite as essential as 
any dealt with in this chapter, which, in my zeal 
to stress the necessity for promoting an active 
interest in music, I have seemed to neglect: 
namely, the highly important detail of listening. 
Intelligent and discriminating listening to music 
cannot be too early begun. From the kindergar- 
ten throughout all the grades about a fourth of 
the time might well be devoted to this practice. 
Such a division would depend, of course, upon 
sufficient time being allowed the study of music 
to permit real accomplishment. For example, 
out of ninety minutes devoted to music each 
week, listening might be accorded twenty or 
twenty-five. Not all school children will be musi- 
cal performers, and these, as well as those who 
will be actively associated with music, will be im- 
mensely benefited. by an early formation of the 
habit of listening. 

Moreover, a lesson given over entirely to sing- 
ing may easily become monotonous, while a few 
moments spent in silent attention will furnish 
variety and an added interest. ‘The question of 
what to do with music during the voice-changing 
period is happily answered as well. Many super- 
visors believe that children should take no part in 


TEACHING IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 71 


singing while their voices are changing, lest 
permanent injury affect the voice, and the oppor- 
tunity for future participation in singing be 
largely cut off. At such a time listening lessons 
are the obvious solution, as they do away with 
the strain attendant on singing and offer excel- 
lent means of advancing the students in music 
appreciation. 

But by “listening” I mean exactly that, and 
not listening in order that questions may be asked 
or explanations offered. It is not in the least 
necessary that little children should understand 
the structure or the technique of the music which 
is played them any more than that they should 
understand all they sing. It is necessary only 
that the music be beautiful and that it be ade- 
quately performed. A plan like the above is so 
simple and so little fraught with pedagogical 
opportunities that to the seekers after measurable 
results it seems of negligible value. ““What pos- 
sible good can it do,” they ask, “merely to play 
to children music which they do not understand? 
If they are to listen, why not play something 
which they can comprehend and which can be 
explained to them?” On the other hand, it may 
reasonably be asked why beauty should not be 


72 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


allowed to be its own spokesman. There is plenty 
of time later on in which to dilate on reiterated 
motives and rhythmic figures, on inversions and 
augmentations, on form and content. With in- 
creased powers of observation and a wider ex- 
perience, children will accept quite naturally an 
explanation of these details; but from the very 
beginning time should be devoted as often as 
possible to listening uncomplicated and unhin- 
dered by explanation; for in no other way may 
children be brought so effectively into direct 
contact with beauty. 

Such a procedure applied to the teaching of 
literature is set forth in Sir Arthur Quiller- 
Couch’s book On the Art of Reading.’ In the 
chapter entitled “Children’s Reading,” he de- 
scribes the method to be employed in presenting 
to children such a poem as Milton’s “L’ Allegro.” 


Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee 
Jest and youthful Jollity, 

Quips, and Cranks, and wanton Wiles, 
Nods, and Becks, and wreathed Smiles, 
Such as hang on Hebe’s cheek, 

And love to live in dimple sleek; .... 


1 Permission to quote kindly given by G. P. Putnam’s Sons. 


TEACHING IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS ‘73 


Then to come, in spite of sorrow, 

And at my window bid good-morrow, 
Through the sweet-brier or the vine 
Or the twisted eglantine; 

While the cock with lively din 
Scatters the rear of Darkness thin; 
And to the stack, or the barn door 
Stoutly struts his dames before: 

Oft listening how the hounds and horn 
Cheerily rouse the slumbering Morn, 
From the side of some hoar hill, 
Through the high wood echoing shrill: 
Sometime walking, not unseen, 

By hedgerow elms on hillocks green, 
Right against the eastern gate, 
Where the great Sun begins his state, 
Robed in flames and amber light, 

The clouds in thousand liveries dight; 
While the ploughman, near at hand, 
Whistles o’er the furrow’d land, 

And the milkmaid singeth blithe, 

And the mower whets his scythe, 

And every shepherd tells his tale 
Under the hawthorn in the dale. 


Don’t stop (I say) to explain that Hebe was (for once) 
the legitimate daughter of Zeus and, as such, had the privi- 
lege to draw wine for the gods. Don’t even stop, just yet, 
to explain who the gods were. Don’t discourse on amber, 


74 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


otherwise ambergris; don’t explain that “gris’’ in this con- 
nection doesn’t mean “grease’’; don’t trace it through the 
Arabic into Noah’s Ark; don’t prove its electrical properties 
by tearing up paper into little bits and attracting them 
with the mouthpiece of your pipe rubbed on your sleeve. 
Don’t insist philologically that when every shepherd “tells 
his tale” he is not relating an anecdote but simply keeping 
tally of his flock. 

Just go on reading, as well as you can; and be sure that 
when the children get the thrill of it, for which you wait, 
they will be asking more questions, and pertinent ones, 


than you are able to answer. 


Now if such a method is applicable to the 
teaching of literature to children, how much 
more so is it in the case of music! For with 
words there is always the suggestion of an idea 
to distract the thoughts from the sheer beauty 
of the poetry, while with music, nothing speaks 
but the sound, wherein all the beauty is con- 
tained. 

In these years of preliminary training, then, 
every effort should be expended to make music 
a vital factor in children’s lives. The approach 
to music study should be natural, and never ac- 
companied by the disagreeable suggestion of an 


TEACHING IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 75 


unwelcome task. Yet to do this we must elimi- 
nate undue emphasis on technique, which stifles 
and often destroys an early interest in music. 
By the same token we must encourage song as 
the door through which all may normally enter 
into active musical enjoyment, and listening as 
the key to an understanding appreciation of 
music. Knowledge of note reading should be 
introduced in due season, but only in such 
measure as shall supply children with enough 
facility to enable them to take part in amateur 
choral singing. Chiefly should we insist that the 
material shall be in every sense the best, for 
without an appreciation such as comes by close 
contact with the highest type of music, all our 
efforts in behalf of educating children will be 
comparatively useless, and we shall send them 
on to other and more varied musical experiences 
in high school, college, and later life, unfitted 
either to understand or to enjoy. And what of 
those whose education closes with the grammar 
school? Theirs is indeed a hard case, for their 
sole inducement to enthusiasm for music is the 
recollection of years of drill, from which all that 
is vital and appealing is absent. With the recog- 


76 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


nition by supervisors of the naturalness and joy- 
ousness of association with the best music as a 
part of the teaching of children, will come the 
dawn of a wiser administration of music in our 
elementary schools. 


CHAPTER FOUR 
MUSIC-TEACHING IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS 


To ONE who is concerned with the unity of 
music education and who seeks to find a con- 
tinued and logical line of progress throughout, 
the transition from the grammar grades to high 
school offers much material for consideration; 
for here is the first definite break with what ap- 
pears to have been a consistently thought-out, 
though unwise and often badly administered, 
plan, namely, the development of technical 
proficiency in the reading of music. Provided 
the efforts of teachers and music supervisors have 
availed at all, children, on reaching high-school 
age, should be capable of reading choral music 
of moderate difficulty. ‘That this is generally 
not possible is an indictment of the teaching as 
well as a reminder that at least some of the 
time devoted to technique during the grammar 
years might be expended in more productive 
ways, such as the singing of song's and the hear- 
ing of good music well performed. If, however, 

77 


18 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


instruction in sight reading is to be emphasized, 
it is reasonable to suppose that that teaching will 
be put to some use in the high school; yet as a 
matter of fact, this is usually not the case, musi- 
cal exercise being frequently omitted altogether, 
particularly in preparatory schools, or else con- 
fined to an hour or two of singing in large groups, 
under the eyes of guardian teachers, whose duty 
it is to see that this hour of relaxation shall not 
become too riotous. 

The attitude of the average high-school class 
toward music ought to give our supervisors 
pause, for there is often evident not only indif- 
ference, but sometimes active disrespect. In one 
high school where a course in music was offered 
for credit, not one freshman out of a class of 
three hundred elected the subject. Inquiry re- 
vealed the fact that previous experience of music 
gained through years of drill in note reading had 
determined them to be rid of music as rapidly as 
possible. Unless children are early led to find 
something joyous and invigorating in music, the 
weekly period of singing in the school hall will 
hardly stimulate a lively interest during high- 
school years. If a sort of academic community 
“sing” is all a high school can afford by way 


TEACHING IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS = 79 


of musical activity, then such work ought to be 
conducted as a course in music appreciation, 
based upon the study and performance of choral 
music, rather than as an hour of enforced recrea- 
tion “set to” music. 

It is at this time in particular that a child’s love 
of music is put to its greatest test; for during the 
years which separate the elementary school and 
college many interests cry to be heard—dancing, 
athletics, social engagements, together with the 
varied appeals common to youth of that age— 
and these are natural enthusiasms which may 
well crowd out others more subtle. And if a 
child embarks on this period with an attitude 
toward music such as must inevitably arise from 
a disagreeable experience of it, and with a taste 
nurtured on the contents of the average school 
music reader, either he will have none of it, or he 
will find his satisfactions in the cheap and im- 
mediately appealing music of the day. 

The question often arises among teachers of 
music in the high school as to the best way to 
offset the influence of modern popular music and 
to substitute a devotion to that which is offered 
during school hours. I think it may be said 
without fear of contradiction that this cannot 


80 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


be done until the subject is more wisely admin- 
istered in the earlier grades, until high-school 
teachers present the material in a more stimulat- 
ing way, and until supervisors abandon frothy 
part songs and cantatas such as Gounod’s 
“Gallia” and Bendel’s “Lady of Shalott’ in 
favor of music of real value. Too frequently 
almost the entire senior year is wasted in pre- 
paring some futile and boisterous work, which 
at graduation shall crown with a halo of medi- 
ocrity fifteen or so years of education in music. 

In contrast to the method so generally em- 
ployed in American high schools may be set the 
achievement of Oundle School in England.* Not 
the least remarkable fact—from the American 
point of view—in connection with the musical 
work carried on there, is that the school is for 
boys. Of five hundred and sixty pupils, over 
half are members of the school choir, and each 
boy in the school possesses a copy of all music 
sung in the chapel. 


Every boy sings in every part of the service, and this 
is one of the ways in which he learns to read music. . . 


1The information and quotations here given are drawn from 
a report entitled “Music in Oundle School,” by C. M. Spurling, 
published in the Music Bulletin of the British Music Society 
for May, 1925. 


TEACHING IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS _ 81 


The choral society consists of about 250 boys, who are 
also in the chapel choir. During the Lent and Summer 
terms various choruses or short works with orchestral 
accompaniment, madrigals, and part-songs are learnt. In 
the Michaelmas term the whole time is devoted to the 
choral work which the school is studying. It is at these 
practices that consciously and subconsciously the boys lay 
a sure foundation in reading music; it is here that many 
boys, who do not know whether they care about music or 
not—because they have never been given the chance or 
opportunity of taking a part in it—learn to love enthusias- 
tically and intelligently the greatest treasures of art. It 
is here that there are practically no boys who are not 
eager to take hold of the good things when they are offered 
to them attractively. It is here that they learn to sing 
with strenuous endeavour and to work with enthusiasm 
and virility; they learn, too, what it means to attempt a 
big difficult thing for the sheer joy of doing it. 


About two hundred boys take instrumental 
lessons, and there is an orchestra of about forty. 
For the younger boys there are each week two 
periods devoted to singing unison songs, together 
with practice in ear-training, sight reading, and 
singing exercises. The school also offers courses 
in music appreciation and history, as well as 
series of concerts by members of the music staff 
and by professional organizations. But that it is 


82 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


considered of prime importance that all the boys 
shall have a part in this music is made clear by 
the following: 


The idea of massed singing in big choral works at 
Oundle has grown out of the full congregational singing, 
which for over thirty years has been a feature of the chapel 
services, and also out of the general musical spirit of the 
school. Place great music in boys’ hands, give them the 
opportunity of taking a real intelligent part, don’t tol- 
erate mere careless following, and they will gain, first a 
little interest, then a little knowledge, and later real ap- 
preciation and keen enjoyment. During the past four 
years the school has learnt, in the Michaelmas term, the 
Messiah, Bach’s B minor Mass (twice), and the Christmas 
Oratorio. The school is divided into chorus, non-choir, and 
orchestra. Approximately 260 boys are in the chorus, 250 
in the non-choir, and the remainder in the orchestra. Each 
of the above works was learnt in less than twelve weeks. 
In the Mass there was not sufficient time to get through 
“Confiteor unum Baptisma” and the “Osanna,” but at 
the performance the other thirteen choruses were sung. 
The part taken throughout by the non-choir is a large and 
very important one; indeed, it is made as large as possible, 
for it is they who determine whether the school singing is 
to be a success or not. They sing certain passages taken 
from the treble, alto, tenor, and bass parts, and in the 
Christmas Oratorio they sang with all the basses and tenors 
in the Da Capo of the bass solo, ‘““Mighty Lord.” 


TEACHING IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS 83 


Now the Oundle School, be it noted, is not a 
music school, but an institution comparable to 
any American secondary school. Furthermore, 
its members are exclusively boys, who in this 
country would not be expected to display 
marked enthusiasm for music. 

In American schools where there is a willing- 
ness on the part of the authorities to accord a 
reasonable amount of time to music, work in 
appreciation is sometimes undertaken. But to 
accomplish anything systematic and _ lasting, 
teachers would have to be content to attack the 
problem in a less spectacular manner than com- 
monly maintains in our schools. In view of the 
experience which precedes this work, the study 
of music appreciation in the high school should 
begin at the beginning and be satisfied to cover 
comparatively little ground. Such a course, 
meeting two or three times a week for two years, 
and adequately illustrated, would start with the 
folk song and end well before modern times. 
There are, moreover, three requisites without 
which any course of this kind would be prac- 
tically worthless. First, the teacher must be a 
reasonably well-educated musician, possessing a 
knowledge of the subject far more extensive than 


84 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


that required by his immediate work, and an ac- 
quaintance with other branches of education 
such as would enable him to draw parallels be- 
tween music and other fields of learning. He 
should have, too, a highly cultivated taste, and a 
faith in the capacity of youth to perceive and 
enjoy beauty without the aid of sugar-coated 
musical palliatives or sensational devices which 
are calculated to enhance interest, but which, in 
reality, distract attention from the music itself. 
And last, the illustrations should offer as nearly 
as possible a true presentation of the work under 
discussion. | 


Obviously the difficulties attendant on pro- 
curing suitable illustrations are legion; many 
teachers do not play the pianoforte well enough 
to perform chamber music and symphonic move- 
ments, while orchestras and string quartets are 
expensive and not always available, with the 
result that the graphophone is called in to sup- 
ply the need. Now the graphophone, if wisely 
used, may be a valuable adjunct to work in 
music appreciation, but it has many deficiencies 
which make its extensive use questionable. 
There is considerable doubt whether a moder- 


TEACHING IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS ~~ 85 


ately well-executed illustration played by two 
or four hands is not a more telling means of 
making music articulate. When using the 
graphophone, if it is desired to comment on a 
particular phrase, the needle must be placed far 
enough back to include the passage in question, 
and as a consequence, extraneous measures are 
included and time is lost. Many movements 
are too long for a single record, so that the piece 
must be unnaturally interrupted while the neces- 
sary transfer is made. Again, the whole char- 
acter of the composition may be altered by the 
speed at which the machine is set, for the tempo 
and pitch depend upon the speed regulator. 
Records wear and become scratchy, parts are 
obscured, and unless the spring is accurately 
regulated, there will be occasional deviations 
from pitch. All these difficulties make the 
graphophone of uncertain value as an educa- 
tional medium when compared with other means. 

But these mechanical disadvantages are as 
nothing compared with the harm which is done 
through the diffusion of indifferent and even 
poor music under the guise of educational ma- 
terial. ‘To name two reasons for this is suffi- 
cient: first, the fact that too many teachers are 


86 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


unable to identify a really good piece of music; 
and, second, the belief, which is far too wide- 
spread, that children cannot understand or ap- 
preciate pure music, but must be assisted in their 
comprehension by some story attached to the 
composition. It is very generally agreed, not- 
withstanding, that such music—program music 
—is less valid esthetically than pure music. 
This, of course, need not be the case, for music 
may be good apart from any artificial frame 
upon which it is constructed; but the truth re- 
mains that composers, having bound themselves 
to pay off a fancied debt to the intelligence of 
the listener, have seldom spoken with such au- 
thority as when expressing abstract musical 
ideas. The greatest musicians have wished to 
address directly the emotions and imaginations 
of their hearers, being content to let beauty be 
its own witness, uninterpreted by narrative or 
poem. And yet teachers will solemnly declare 
that all music is “about something”; that there 
is a meaning hidden in it, which must be discoy- 
ered before the music may be fully enjoyed. 
Thus Beethoven’s simple motif is “Fate knock- 
ing at the door,” and Brahms’s First Symphony 
is the triumph of something or other. What 


TEACHING IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS = 87 


these men really wrote, however, was music, not 
musical stories; and it is Just here that teachers 
and makers of programs for children’s concerts 
err so sadly, for the imagination is never more 
active than in youth, nor is the sensitiveness to 
beauty ever keener. At the risk of repetition let 
it be said that children do enjoy the best music 
when it is properly presented. 

Then why not permit the child to form his 
own impressions? Why not allow the composer 
to stimulate each one according to his capacity 
to answer the message of the music? Just be- 
cause I think that a piece means wind in the 
trees or Leander swimming the Hellespont, 
must everyone who hears that music tag each 
phrase as a particular incident and sit watch- 
fully lest he fail to identify the tale as it seems 
to me to be narrated by the music? ‘To accus- 
tom children to depend upon these devices either 
through the use of program music or through 
yarns constructed about pieces that musicians 
intended to be the free speech of one spirit to 
another, is to do a gross injustice to both the 
composer and the composition, and to raise up a 
race of feeble concert-goers who will be lost un- 
less they can find a story to fit each piece. Fur- 


88 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


nish a child with an active experience of good 
music during his grammar years and he will, as 
a high-school student, find more enjoyment in 
the vitality and sheer beauty of a Brandenburg 
concerto by Bach than in the din and clatter of 
Tschaikowsky’s tawdry “1812 Overture.” 

It is often argued that the use of program 
music offers an opportunity for the drawing of 
literary and historical parallels, and for the 
dramatization of the narratives involved. In 
themselves such activities are praiseworthy, but 
as occupying time which might better be devoted 
to music, they are actually harmful. In our 
music education we get too many details such 
as acting, and complicated physical exercise, 
and contests, and note-reading, and story-telling, 
and historical essay-writing, and explanations 
about music, and too little use of music itself. 
If we could but see that music is a universal 
language, all-engrossing and self-sufficient, that 
the best music is often the simplest, lying easily 
within a child’s comprehension; if, as teachers, 
we but understood the language of Bach and 
Beethoven as we understand the language of 
Tschaikowsky; if we but had’ faith to believe 
that children, lacking our sophistication, which 


TEACHING IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS — 89 


grows out of prejudices and complicated ex- 
periences, hear what we cannot hear; and if we 
could but stop talking about music and stop try- 
ing to interpret it, we should afford to children 
the opportunity which is their due, and to the 
best music the privilege which as a great art it 
merits—the one, of listening naturally and 
freely; the other, of speaking its own message in 
its own way. 

In protesting against “talking about” music, 
I do not mean explaining it, but rather the 
vague and airy comment which is better de- 
scribed as “talking around” music; for an ex- 
planation of what the music is, its structure and 
form, is Just as necessary from an educational 
point of view as an explanation of what it means 
is unnecessary. Merely to listen to music, like 
children, to let it play pleasantly or disagreeably 
upon one’s emotions, is to be an unintelligent 
listener and to miss the greater part of a pos- 
sible enjoyment. In the high school a course in 
appreciation should include instruction in the 
simpler forms; some treatment of the structure 
of the music; illustrations of the sound of the 
various orchestral instruments by competent 
performers (the graphophone is unable to pro- 


90 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


duce exactly the different timbres) ; and an his- 
torical and esthetic comparison of styles. At 
no time, however, should these details interfere 
with the hearing of the music, for this is, above 
all things, important. Moreover, all explana- 
tion should come after the class is thoroughly ac- 
quainted with the work as a whole, having heard 
it played a number of times. With such a prepa- 
ration there is no danger that the quality of the 
composition as a work of art will be destroyed. 


One of the most effective methods of supple- 
menting appreciation in the grades and high 
schools is to be found in young people’s con- 
certs. These events, given by orchestras and 
choruses, are intended to offer to children the 
privilege of hearing good music well performed. 
Too often, however, we adopt an apologetic at- 
titude with regard to the programs, arguing that 
children will not attend unless we give them 
light, pretty, or spectacular music, much of 
which is far from educational. As with every 
venture of this kind, the question of the desired 
end immediately arises. If the purpose is to 
allow children the opportunity of hearing well- 
known musical organizations perform in a fin- 


TEACHING IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS 91 


ished manner, then the detail of what music shall 
be used need not concern us. If, on the other 
hand, we wish children to hear, first of all, good 
music, then we must give thought to the pro- 
gram. | 

The object of such concerts should not be to 
amuse or startle the hearers, but to train their 
tastes and stimulate their imaginations. ‘To this 
end a minimum of “program” music should be 
used, as this material tends to circumscribe the 
play of the imagination and to emphasize the 
story at the expense of the music. Rather 
should abstract music be employed, embodying 
melody, rhythm, and color: such compositions 
as movements from symphonies by Haydn and 
Mozart, the shorter movements from Beethoven 
and later symphonists, suites both ancient and 
modern, the “Water Music” of Handel, the 
“Espana” of Chabrier. Works of this type 
exist in abundance and are truly educational. 
The programs should be arranged progressively 
so that at later concerts children would be ready 
to follow intelligently and with interest more 
modern material and a more complicated musi- 
cal speech. Each piece, especially where high- 
school pupils are in attendance, should be com- 


92 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


mented upon at the concert by a lecturer, or in a 
printed note, or analyzed in school by the super- 
visor, previous to the concert. 

We need not fear that programs exclusively 
of good music will bore children; the qualities 
that make poor music speciously attractive exist 
purified and ennobled in good music. ALI that 
is required is that children shall be given the op- 
portunity of hearing masterpieces frequently 
and well performed. 


Among the unfortunate substitutes for music 
appreciation which have recently sprung up, 
none has had greater vogue than the so-called 
“memory” contest. This is ostensibly an ally to 
the teaching of music appreciation, but in reality 
it is based upon our love of the spectacular and 
our desire for measurable results. Founded in 
the competitive idea so dear to American hearts, 
it summons crowds of children to hear played 
the first few measures of thirty or forty com- 
positions previously studied, and to vie with one 
another in identifying the name of the piece and 
of the composer. Now there is nothing in this 
that necessarily presupposes instruction in music 
appreciation. All that is required is that the 


TEACHING IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS 93 


child should hear the opening measures played 
on the graphophone a sufficient number of times 
to permit him to recognize, parrot-like, the com- 
position. ‘Then follows the purely intellectual 
task of assigning the correct name, and after 
that, remembering who wrote the work. What 
is there here that is likely to teach a child much 
about music or to increase his appreciation? 
There is nothing to guarantee that he has ana- 
lyzed the compositions even superficially. Un- 
doubtedly the idea of the initiators was to fur- 
ther music appreciation through memory con- 
tests, but it would be impossible for any class to 
learn even superficially in the given time all the 
compositions specified on a contest list; the re- 
sult is that each teacher undertakes to win the 
prize by forcibly feeding his charges with per- 
haps two hundred and forty measures of music 
(the first eight bars of thirty compositions). 

It would be far from just, however, to as- 
sume that all these enterprises are conducted in 
so superficial a manner, or that their effect is 
completely negative. For in some places where 
there is not an abundance of concerts, children 
receive their first experience of good music 
through memory contests. Some of the selec- 


94 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


tions on any contest list are sure to be good; 
local orchestras are sometimes asked by school 
authorities to play them; and graphophone com- 
panies sell records of them. All this results in 
the spread of not a little excellent music and 
shows further what might be accomplished were 
these contests generally better administered. 
Now, if some ten or twelve movements were 
selected, with the understanding that at the con- 
test sixteen bars drawn from any part of one of 
these movements would be played, there would 
at least be some assurance that the children had 
heard and become acquainted with all the music. 
If, furthermore, the children were asked to iden- 
tify the composer and the type of several pieces 
previously unheard by them, but which were the 
work of musicians represented on the contest 
list, we could speculate that the children had 
been taught something about musical style. Such 
a contest, involving more advanced instruction 
in music appreciation and a maturer grasp of 
musical material, would belong exclusively to 
the high school. Under these conditions it 
would not be probable that a child could identify 
correctly the names of thirty-nine out of forty 
compositions, and yet make the illuminating 


TEACHING IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS _ 95 


error, as once occurred, of mistaking the over- 
ture to “William Tell” for the overture to “The 
Mastersingers.” No: to assemble five hundred 
children to perform stunts of memory is not nec- 
essarily to assemble five hundred music lovers. 
The truth of this last statement is being grad- 
ually borne in upon supervisors and managers of 
memory contests, with the result that of late 
there has been an encouraging improvement in 
the administration of these affairs. 


With so little time given to music in the high 
school, and with such demonstrations of its edu- 
cational value as are too often displayed in mem- 
ory contests, one should not be surprised that 
children often do not respect music as carried 
on in our schools. Nor will they, until the ad- 
ministration is altered and until music has lost 
the extra-curriculum quality which prevails in 
so many school systems. In fact, music will 
never have the dignity it merits as an academic 
activity, until it has been accepted as a subject 
suitable for college entrance examination on a 
par with Greek, history, mathematics, and the 
sciences. 

Is there anything inherent in music which 


96 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


makes it unfit to take its place in the academic 
roster? Do not those who regard music as a 
subject unfit for college entrance credit base 
their opinions on an impression of the subject 
gained from their acquaintance with music- 
teachers, with the material used, and the results 
achieved, rather than on an examination of music 
itself? For there still remains in the minds of 
many otherwise intelligent educators a convic- 
tion that music concerns itself with the physical 
body and with the emotions, rather than with 
the intellect. It is difficult to convince these 
gentlemen that “playing the piano with expres- 
sion” is any part of a guaranty that a boy or girl 
has the kind of mental equipment which justifies 
admission to college. In this I believe they are 
right; but such study as would constitute an 
adequate preparation for an academic entrance 
examination need not be considered as having 
that single purpose, but, if properly organized 
and skillfully conducted, would serve equally 
well as the basis of an appreciative and mature 
attitude toward music, regardless of whether or 
not the work were continued into college. 

Now there are four branches of music which 
might be considered as possible material for en- 


TEACHING IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS = 97 


trance examinations: harmony, appreciation, ap- 
plied music, and ear-training; and these seem 
to the author to be valuable and suitable in vary- 
ing degree. A number of American colleges 
do offer entrance credit in music, but the choice 
of subject within the larger field of music itself 
seems too often to be dictated by conditions as 
they are rather than by conditions as they should 
be. Nothing would so quickly clarify the whole 
diverse conception of music education, or bring 
unity out of the chaos which now maintains in 
secondary school systems, as the setting of col- 
lege-entrance examinations comparable in qual- 
ity to those offered in other subjects. 

First of all, harmony makes a strong appeal 
to many school musicians, because to teach it for 
examination purposes one need know little about 
music. A typical examination paper in harmony 
requires the setting of melodies, and figured and 
unfigured basses in four parts. Chord connec- 
tion, grammatical voice progression, modulation, 
cadences, and the other details involved in such 
a test may be taught by rule and formula, with 
slight reference to the resultant sound. This, of 
course, is not music, but musical mechanics; it 
affords, however, an easy solution of the prob- 


98 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


lem. In at least one school where the authori- 
ties were faced with the duty of preparing stu- 
dents for an examination in harmony, the mat- 
ter was referred to the teacher of mathematics, 
as the one whose subject lay nearest to harmony. 
Harvard University, which once offered har- 
mony and counterpoint as admission subjects, 
revoked these examinations because it was found 
that students having passed the tests with a high 
grade, and having been admitted on the strength 
of their entrance record to a more advanced class 
than is usually open to freshmen, were unable to 
proceed with the work, owing to the fact that 
they had no conception of harmony and counter- 
point as music, but had learned them, sometimes 
in a “cramming school” course of a few weeks, 
as numbers and symbols. Harmony so taught 
centers in the use of mechanical exercises spe- 
cially designed to instruct in the stock material 
of music. But these are not music, and no teach- 
ing of harmony or counterpoint is worth the 
name which does not relate itself directly to the 
classics and which does not demand that its prod- 
ucts shall possess some imagination. 

But even were it possible to teach harmony 
ideally in the high school, the expediency of such 


TEACHING IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS 99 


a step is questionable, for the work necessarily 
involves few rather than many students, and this 
at a time when every child should be associating 
himself with the compositions of great musi- 
cians. Harmony, however, calls a few talented 
children to learn music through the medium of 
mechanical exercises invented for a professional 
harmonist. Many years will pass, I take it, be- 
fore our American high schools will consider sup- 
plementing the traditional choral period with 
both harmony and counterpoint, and with music 
appreciation as well. And where there is a 
choice, harmony will be selected; first, because 
to teach it for entrance examination purposes 
requires & minimum of musical information, 
whereas the teaching of music appreciation in- 
volves a knowledge such as only a well-trained 
musician would possess; and second, because the 
equipment — pianofortes, phonographs, rolls, 
disks, scores, etc.— necessary for instruction in 
music appreciation is more involved and consid- 
erably more expensive than that required for the 
teaching of harmony and counterpoint. Har- 
mony belongs primarily to the professional mu- 
sician, and for the majority of students can 
hardly be of great value. Besides, compara- 


100 ©MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


tively few children have the special gifts, train- 
ing, and experience necessary to an intelligent 
grasp of the subject. | 
Obviously it would be possible to effect a re- 
form in the teaching of high-school harmony, 
which would presuppose the engagement of mu- 
sicians rather than bool teachers to carry on the 
work, and which would look to the production of 
music rather than dry learning; but even so, a 
course in eye and ear training should come first, 
as well as thorough instruction in music appre- 
ciation, upon which is built successful participa- 
tion in every branch of musical exercise, whether 
composing, music-teaching, performing, or mere 
listening. But after all, relatively few grad- 
uates of our high schools will take part in music 
to an extent requiring an understanding of har- 
mony; while everyone will have to hear music— 
there is no escape from that fact—and it ought to 
be our ambition to develop during the years of 
high school an admiration of good music and a 
will to have a part in it, together with the power 
to discriminate between what is good and what 
is poor, leaving the more advanced and quasi- 
professional departments of the art for college 
and conservatory. ‘This, to the exclusion of all 


TEACHING IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS 101 


other aims, should engage the interest and effort 
of every music-teacher. 

Such an object may be attained in the case of 
the high school, I believe, by using in choral 
work compositions which might justifiably be 
considered material for music appreciation study 
and by a course in appreciation, in which listen- 
ing to music is the primary consideration. 

“But how,” the educator will ask, ‘‘can one ex- 
amine a student on the appreciation of music? 
In language tests there are rules and sight trans- 
lation, and in mathematics, problems to be solved; 
but as a test of intellectual power it is of no use 
to ask a pupil whether he prefers Bach to Bee- 
thoven, or what the sonata form is.” ‘This and 
similar objections are all too just, and result 
from the type of examination commonly offered. 
To be sure, some historical facts should be in- 
cluded by way of background, but by far the 
larger part of an entrance examination in the 
appreciation of music should concern itself with 
the actual music; with the ability to comment 
intelligently and discriminatingly upon compo- 
sitions not previously heard, identifying their 
form, naming their composers or the period in © 
which they were written, and noting any tech- 


102 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


nical or stylistic details of importance. If pre- 
ceded by a proper course in eye and ear train- 
ing, such a course might dispense in part with 
the services of the pianoforte and require all 
facts to be adduced through the eye rather than 
the ear. There is no reason why a test of this 
nature,» combining a knowledge of certain 
phases of musical history with an intellectual 
grasp of the substance and import of music, 
should not take its place beside any other en- 
trance examination. 


Music lessons, like measles, are among the un- 
escapables of the American home. Just because 
so many of us do perform music and have spent 
so many years in acquiring technical facility, it 
is hard to persuade us that singing and playing 
are not real tests of mental ability. Confusing 
the amount of the labor with its quality, we 
should like to make use of our accomplishments 
‘to get into college. Another difficulty ap- 
pears in the fact that in many school systems 
applied music, that is, playing and singing, is 

1For the suggested requirements of college-entrance examina- 
tions in the History and Appreciation of Music, as published in 


a report submitted in 1923 by a commission appointed by the 
College Entrance Examination Board, see Appendix B. 


TEACHING IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS 103 


heartily encouraged both in and out of school 
hours. ‘This is as it should be, for the cultiva- 
tion of so great an enjoyment as comes from 
ability to perform music should be fostered dur- 
ing any educational period in which both physi- 
cal and mental skill is developed. But singing 
and playing are primarily physical activities and 
as such are not suitable for college-entrance 
credit, since no such intellectual demands are 
made of them as are made in the case of other 
entrance subjects.’ 

The increasing encouragement offered by 
school authorities to orchestras, bands, and glee 
clubs is a hopeful indication of the fact that 
music is becoming more and more recognized as 
an educational means, and less as an educational 
frill. Through organizations such as these may 
be taught a spirit of co-operation, a respect for 
discipline, and a sense of values, that may hardly 
be duplicated in any other way. For there is no 


1It is sometimes urged that there is an analogy between the 
type of ability required in the manipulation of apparatus used in 
the physical laboratory in preparation for entrance examina- 
tions, and the merely mechanical business of playing the piano- 
forte, for example. This is hardly true, for ability to handle 
skillfully laboratory instruments presupposes the use of logic 
and original thinking in the experiments which are to follow, 
whereas playing the pianoforte may be a purely physical matter 
in which the intellect plays a relatively small part. 


104 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


great glory in playing in a high-school orchestra; 
the members are not lionized for their achieve- 
ments nor given sweaters as a token of service; 
yet they must, if they would be successful, sub- 
mit to long and sometimes painful rehearsing, 
preceded by hours on hours of individual prac- 
tice, in order that each one may attain sufficient 
skill to become a member of the organization. 
Many high schools now offer credit toward 
the diploma for study of applied music done 
outside school hours. This, too, is highly to be 
commended, for in a scheme which recognizes as 
of diploma value important details of physical 
training like gymnastics and military drill there 
is certainly room for a subject of such co-ordi- 
native excellence as instrumental playing. But 
the administration of the work in applied music 
under these conditions should be judiciously reg- 
ulated; for not all instruments possess a body 
of literature worth studying, and certain fields 
such as singing may be too much a matter of 
mere physical endowment and too little a mat- 
ter of application to make them significant as 
educative processes. If, however, credit is of- 
fered in applied music, children with a particular 
aptitude for the playing of instruments may be 


TEACHING IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS 105 


induced to accord music practice a degree of at- 
tention which it would not receive under other 
circumstances, and so interest in a valuable 
branch of musical activity will have been created 
in a way that would have been impossible in col- 
lege, because of academic restriction, or, in later 
life, of the exigencies of business or the home. 
The merit of ear and eye training in music can 
hardly be overestimated. Its worth from a mu- 
sical point of view is self-evident, but its impor- 
tance as a quickener and co-ordinator of certain 
senses is often overlooked. Anything which 
leads to accuracy of vision and to exact and in- 
telligent hearing is to be sought not only as a 
general educational means, but as an asset to 
every human activity. Surely eye and ear train- 
ing is an essential prelude to every line of mu- 
sical endeavor, whether creative, reproductive, or 
simply appreciative; it is invaluable to the singer 
or player, and without it the student of har- 
mony or appreciation, unless he be particularly 
gifted, is at a loss. To pass an examination* in 
this subject requires quick thinking and a high 
1For the suggested requirements of college-entrance examina- 
tions in Ear Training and Elementary Theory, as published in 


@ report submitted in 1923 by a commission appointed by the 
College Entrance Examination Board, see Appendix C. 


106 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


degree of sense efficiency, and as such it has a 
very distinct place in the list of college-entrance 
subjects and should be there included. 


As with all other steps in the progress of 
music education, we may not isolate the prob-- 
lem of the high school from that of the college 
any more than we may isolate the problem of the 
grammar school from that of the high school, for 
the high-school period is one which either sepa- 
rates early musical experience from that of the 
college and of the world outside the college, or 
else unites and amplifies that early training in 
preparation for a more mature understanding of 
the art. In the first case, children spend three or 
four years practically cut off from music, in the 
course of which they often forget the music al- 
ready learned in the grammar school, and, what 
is much more serious, fail to receive that im- 
petus to an interest in music, which might con- 
tinue throughout life. In the latter case they 
would at least maintain contact with music, a 
fact which might mean much or little to them 
later. 

We could wish that educators and music- 
teachers would see the whole of music educa- 


TEACHING IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS 107 


tion; not as a problem for grades four, five, and 
six, for the high school, or for the college, but 
as one long progressive crescendo of interest and 
achievement, from kindergarten through college 
and afterward. We are making rapid strides 
toward such a conception of music education; 
but too many music-teachers still stand at their 
appointed places on the ladder of music-teach- 
ing, busy with their own particular tasks, un- 
mindful of the fact that the result makes neither 
for unity nor for success: the grammar-school 
teacher teaching notes; the high-school teacher 
avoiding the subject because “there isn’t time” 
or because “it is not of sufficient value’’; and the 
college teacher viewing the whole substance of 
school music as a strange demonstration of mis- 
directed effort with which he is only slightly con- 
cerned. But we may assume one fact as certain: 
any effort to improve conditions of teaching, to 
better standards of music, and to bring unity out 
of disjunction, must come primarily from the 
college. As long as the teachers of the higher 
branches of music are willing to accept the 
degree and kind of musical knowledge which 
college freshmen now possess, viewing it as the 
result of a condition over which they have no 


108 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


control, and hastily imparting to the student in- 
formation of which he should have been in full 
possession upon graduation from the grammar 
school, in an effort to prepare him even super- 
ficially for college work, just so long shall we be 
committed to a program of educational and mu- 
sical mediocrity. Indeed, if there is one issue 
upon which the whole question of success or fail- — 
ure turns, it is upon that of a proper recognition 
by American colleges of the validity of music as 
an entrance requirement. Without that, any 
progress along the road of better musical educa- 
tion will be slow indeed. 


CHAPTER FIVE 
MUSIC-TEACHING IN COLLEGES 


It 1s evident, from the survey of school music 
as set forth in the previous chapters, that the 
college may expect but little of freshmen by way 
either of experience or of technical knowledge. 
Indeed, were prospective students of first-year 
harmony to be offered a test designed to show 
whether or not they were properly equipped, 
few other than those of unusual talent, or those 
who had had special training outside school 
hours, would survive. Some colleges undertake 
to meet this difficulty by obliging students de- 
ficient in the requisite ability to take courses in 
ear and eye training, counting these toward the 
degree. This is a frank and inevitable solution, 
but it is at once a true indictment of elementary 
music education and an injustice to other stu- 
dents who are doing work of college caliber; for 
although it is obviously impossible to draw com- 
parisons between the value of courses in differ- 
ent fields or even in the same department, yet 

109 


110 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


there is a line which divides with sufficient defi- 
niteness work of pre-college quality from that 
ordinarily accepted as of college standing. No 
college would offer a course in simple arithmetic, 
because an institution of higher learning has the 
right to assume that such instruction has been 
afforded in the earlier stages of education; nor 
would an academic department of Greek wel- 
come a freshman even into its most elementary 
course, if that student, in spite of nine prelimi- 
nary years devoted to the study of Greek, was 
as yet only imperfectly possessed of a knowl- 
edge of the Greek alphabet. 

Upon entering college, the American student 
who desires to learn something of music is of- 
fered four departments of the subject to which 
he may devote himself—theoretical, historical, 
appreciative, and applied. In some institutions 
only two of these are given; in others three or 
more are presented. The first group includes 
harmony, counterpoint, canon, fugue, instru- 
mentation, etc.; the second, courses in the his- 
tory and development of music, often with ref- 
erence to particular branches and periods; the 
third aims to acquaint students with the master- 
pieces of music and to create a critical and in- 


MUSIC-TEACHING IN COLLEGES 111 


telligent attitude; and the fourth concerns itself 
with such activities as solo and choral singing, 
and playing upon instruments. As a matter of 
fact, if correctly taught, every course, no mat- 
ter what its classification, becomes a course in 
music appreciation, for it keeps the students in 
constant touch with the best music and demands 
of them a first-hand knowledge gained by ex- 
perience. In harmony, for instance, students 
should be required to search among the classics 
and in modern music for examples of the par- 
ticular harmonic material under discussion, and 
to copy these passages and bring them into class 
for discussion. As much of the context as pos- 
sible should be included, so that the measures in 
question may have the benefit of a proper set- 
ting. In courses in history and appreciation, 
students should be urged not to remain content 
with classroom illustrations, but to discover 
similar compositions which have not been pre- 
sented in class; to play or sing these and to make 
a comparison of styles and methods. The diffi- 
culties of teaching applied music from the point 
of view of appreciation are many, because the 
mere matter of surmounting the technical prob- 
lems involved, and the necessity for correction 


112 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


in the tone-production and fingering, reduce to 
a minimum the amount of time which may be 
spent in calling attention to the beauty of the 
music. 

Courses in the theoretical branches are gen- 
erally called “professionalizing”’ courses and are 
intended primarily for those who intend to be 
composers or virtuosi. As a means of training 
the mind and imagination they are also excel- 
lent, but it is questionable whether any student 
who has not been well grounded in music, or 
who does not possess a particular gift, might not 
labor more profitably in some other realm of 
academic activity. For such purposes a good 
course in English literature or composition, or 
in the history and appreciation of painting, 
would seem admirable, without requiring that 
talent which is an admitted essential in a suc- 
cessful study of the technique of music. 


Harmony is frequently referred to as a “dry” 
subject. The reason for this, I believe, is to be 
found partly in the method of teaching employed 
by many academicians, and partly in the fact 
that comparatively few students entering college 
are equipped to pursue harmony from a humanly 


MUSIC-TEACHING IN COLLEGES 113 


interesting point of view. ‘To one engaged in 
studying history and government, science or let- 
ters, all of which possess an undeniably romantic 
basis, the prospect of learning music, of all sub- 
jects, through some categorical scheme of fig- 
ures and rules, is hardly alluring. And yet, to 
deal with the subject as music, demands on the 
part of the student, first, a knowledge of the 
simple substance of music, with ability to ma- 
nipulate it through the ear, the eye, and the 
imagination, without reference to instrumental 
aid; second, a melodic sense; and, third, an ex- 
perience of good simple music, against which he 
may set his own work for comparison. ‘That the 
first and third of these essentials are lacking in 
most college students, with the reasons therefor, 
has been set forth earlier in this book. The sec- 
ond, however, is quite as important as the others, 
and ought of them all to be easiest of attainment. 

Now there is no simpler way to gain a feeling 
for melody than to associate with great melo- 
dies. Folk songs, together with the instru- 
mental and vocal melodies of Schubert, Brahms, 
Rossini, and other masters in this particular 
field, will best furnish one the melodic sense. On 
the other hand, melodic exercises and the inner 


114 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


parts of harmonically conceived devices such as 
are found in school music readers will not avail. 
There is a world of difference between writing 
beautiful melodies and having the melodic sense; 
the former is a gift; the latter, an acquirement. 
Schubert and Rossini were writers of beautiful 
melodies, while any student who can compose a 
coherent soprano may be said to have a melodic 
sense. But many students are unable to make a 
soprano part which is even melodically organ- 
ized, because they have never gained that instinc- 
tive feeling for melodic direction which comes 
from singing or playing tunes. | 

The area of this question, however, covers 
more than the mere writing of soprano parts, for 
the whole matter of harmony-teaching should be 
viewed melodically. To write correct harmony 
is to construct musical wax-works, each figure 
perfect in its setting, but the whole group lack- 
ing in animation and interest. ‘To write melodic 
harmony is to infuse those figures with life, to 
make them capable of recounting an unbroken 
narrative and of being a part of musical exist- 
ence, not merely a group of frozen chords. No 
one who has tried to make music has not early 
discovered that without the ability to write me- 


MUSIC-TEACHING IN COLLEGES 115 


lodic inner voices no musical continuity such as 
is demanded by development sections and varia- 
tion forms is possible. Music history records 
many cases of composers who have turned from 
a primarily harmonic presentation of their ideas 
to a method which made use of both harmony 
and counterpoint, in the realization that they 
were widening materially the scope of their mu- 
sical appeal; and there are other composers, who, 
in spite of imagination, melodic gift, and the 
technique of instrumental writing, are deficient 
because they express themselves in terms of one 
melody rather than a number of melodies. 

To many teachers, viewing the previous train- 
ing and present abilities of their students, and 
conscious of the limited amount of time allowed 
to one “course,” a single solution seems pos- 
sible, namely, to teach harmony as chords, or as 
a kind of artistic mathematics. Aside from its 
valuelessness, such instruction works positive in- 
jury to a student who contemplates the exten- 
sion of his work into the field of counterpoint, 
because it is not humanly possible to concentrate 
upon the vertical aspect of music during a num- 
ber of years and then suddenly to view the whole 
problem horizontally. As a matter of fact, there 


116 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA, 


should never be any real transition from har- 
mony to counterpoint; the one should be a nat- 
ural outgrowth of the other. To insist upon 
academically correct spacing and doubling is to 
be proved a false prophet by music itself, for the 
harmony of the great masters, when referred to 
the class as examples of workmanship and style, 
will be found to contain many details which 
would be viewed as heresy by “textbook” musi- 
cians. Harmony may be taught interestingly 
and profitably if it is kept in constant contact 
with music itself and if the teacher requires not 
only a logical chord connection, but also a stimu- 
lating melodic life in all voices, regardless of an 
occasional manipulation which may seem un- 
usual from the standpoint of harmonic rule. 


While harmony is a special, expert branch of 
the subject, concerning for the most part only 
those who intend to engage in music as profes- 
sionals or highly trained amateurs, with appreci- 
ation the case is different. A man who is unac- 
quainted with the masterpieces of music is just 
as uneducated as one who is ignorant of the works 
of Shakespeare; without an intelligent apprecia- 
tion of the symphonies of Brahms and Beethoven, 


MUSIC-TEACHING IN COLLEGES 117 


or of the great choral works, no one can lay claim 
to real cultivation. We are too prone to regard 
a knowledge of music as a sort of trimming on 
the mantle of culture, an ornament not indis- 
pensable to the completeness of the garment; 
and yet music is quite as essential to the well- 
rounded life, and an understanding of music as 
vital a factor in cultivation, as any other factor. 
It is safe to say that a large majority of 
freshmen have no intellectual apprehension of 
music. Often enough they are unable even to 
concentrate sufficiently on a composition of any 
length to listen to it in toto. Obviously the 
method to be employed is one which will bring 
these students into direct contact with music. 
In history and appreciation courses, instead of 
being lectured to by the hour upon dates of birth 
and death, and upon the influence of one school 
upon another—facts to be found in textbooks— 
students should be made to listen critically to 
music, to participate in it actively so far as is 
possible, and to gain from their listening such 
facts as relate to the music itself. There is no 
reason why the “case” system, so valuably ap- 
plied in law, medical, and business schools, 
should not be used in music-teaching. Let us 


118 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


imagine, for example, a course in music appre- 
ciation conducted after this fashion. Students 
are first told what music is, and how, in sub- 
stance and effect, it differs from the other arts; 
how sound developed into music largely through 
the agency of the folk song. Numbers of these 
melodies, beautiful in themselves, and often 
characteristic of the basic musical style of the 
nations which they represent, should be sung by 
the students. The development of folk song 
and its kindred form, plain song, should be 
traced, each step made vivid to the class by its 
own performance of the music. With instru- 
mental forms, the ability of the class to partici- 
pate is, of course, materially reduced. But some 
students will be able to play with more or less 
success the “‘cases”’ under discussion, and all can 
at least sing the main themes, and by listening 
and by following the score with the eye learn to 
identify the main formal divisions of music and 
the styles of composers and periods. 

When offering a test, instead of asking for a 
written statement relative to the advances in the 
sonata form achieved by Beethoven, or a list of 
Wagner’s operas, or the number and names of 
movements usually found in the suite, the 


MUSIC-TEACHING IN COLLEGES 119 


teacher may play various compositions or ex- 
cerpts from them, requiring the students to 
identify the composer, school, or period, together 
with the form, and to remark on any passages 
which are of technical or historical interest.’ 
Where the assistance of the eye will be valu- 
able, these questions may be supplemented by a 
mimeographed music sheet containing short pas- 
sages for comment. In every instance the stu- 
dent should give reasons for his selection of the 
composer or period, and if his arguments be logi- 
cal even though his answer be wrong, he should 
be accorded credit. ‘There is not a little music 
of Palestrina, for example, that sounds like that 
of Vittoria or Des Prés; nor is it always possible 
to assign to the proper century a composition 
previously unheard. A student’s success in such 
an examination will depend upon how thor- 
oughly he has investigated each preceding illus- 
tration as a “case,” and not upon whether he has 
learned certain details about music from a text- 
book, supplemented by an enjoyable concert 


1In Appendix D will be found an examination such as is 
described above, given in a course in the “History of Choral 
Music” at Harvard University. The course has three meetings 
each week, at one of which the class (made up of Harvard and 
Radcliffe students) sings the music discussed at the lectures. 


120 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


given by the instructor as illustrator. To pass, 
he must know the music and not merely facts 
relating to it. 

During the progress of the course students 
should from time to time study a certain com- 
position with a view to discovering whether it is 
characteristic of other music by the same com- 
poser, and how it differs from similar works by 
other men of the same period.’ If the students 
are unable to play the music in question, the in- 
structor should arrange an hour when it can 
be performed in detail. In other words, each 
piece will be treated as a “case,” and com- 
pared with other “cases.” Every composition, 
however, should first be presented intact, and its 
beauty as an artistic unit dwelt upon. 

Much of the material used in a course of this 
kind ought normally to be covered in the high 
school, but under present conditions it falls to 
the lot of the college instructor to make up for 
deficiencies of earlier training. Clearly, college 
students cannot advance as far as would be pos- 


*In making a study of the oratorio, students may be asked to 
examine certain specified choruses of Handel with reference to 
differences of vocal treatment; after these have been studied, 
the dates of the oratorios from which they are drawn should be 
found and facts relating to the following development of Han- 
del’s choral style deduced. 


MUSIC-TEACHING IN COLLEGES 121 


sible were they adequately prepared; nor will 
they proceed as rapidly as would be the case 
were the needs of college appreciation work sat- 
isfied by book facts and a rapid “concert” sur- 
vey of the masterpieces of music. Again, let it 
be said that we must forgo our pride in short 
cuts and quick results, if we are to achieve any- 
thing valid and lasting in our efforts to spread 
musical cultivation. 


The last division of college work in music to 
be considered here is the applied branches, 
namely, playing and singing. It may be stated 
at the beginning that the reception accorded by 
each individual to the idea of including these 
activities under work for the A. B. degree 
will depend entirely upon what he thinks the 
significance of that degree to be. If he believes 
that the degree is a symbol of broad and inclu- 
sive cultivation, requiring for its attainment the 
employment of logic in every subject, he will be 
likely to reject applied music. If, on the other 
hand, he feels that the traditional limits of the 
degree should be extended to include vocational 
subjects, together with those usually committed 
to professional schools and those embodying pri- 


122 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


marily physical co-ordination, he will see no ob- 
jection to welcoming applied music into the 
academic fold. ‘The writer is firm in the belief 
that the best interests of education in general and 
of music in particular are not advanced by ad- 
mitting to academic rank a subject so prone to 
discrepancies of procedure and standard, one 
whose content lies so clearly outside the area of 
connected and progressive thinking. 

Four reasons are commonly advanced in be- 
half of the acceptance of applied music for the 
Bachelor of Arts degree: first, that playing or 
singing involves constructive mental effort com- 
parable with that employed in other academic 
fields; second, that ability to play or sing is a 
desirable accomplishment for an educated man 
or woman; third, that to study applied music 
contributes to culture; and fourth, that those 
who intend to make of applied music a vocation 
cannot afford to neglect practice during college 
years. 

Now, it is very difficult to make a comparison 
between applied music and academic work in, for 
example, the languages or sciences, because such 
a variety of aim and method exists within the 
former as to make it unique in education. In- 


MUSIC-TEACHING IN COLLEGES 123 


deed, except to state that applied music aims at 
the transference of symbols into sound, it is im- 
possible to draw any parallels between the men- 
tal and physical processes involved, say, in play- 
ing the flute and in playing the violin. Analo- 
gies may be made between methods of studying 
various languages or sciences, and the difficulties 
which are peculiar to each subject may be esti- 
mated in comparison with those of other sub- 
jects, with the result that academic credit may 
be accorded each course of study in proportion- 
ate degree. But consider how much easier it is 
to learn to sing than to learn to play the piano- 
forte acceptably; and how much easier to learn 
to play the pianoforte than the violin. Ob- 
viously, then, it is not possible to reduce the 
interior differences of applied music to a com- 
mon denominator, which can be so calculated in 
terms of academic credit that it may be placed 
side by side with Greek, mathematics, and the 
sciences. 

Many cases might be cited to illustrate incon- 
sistencies in the standards of applied music. 
Take, for example, the work of two students: 
one, of the pianoforte; the other, of singing. 
Each is equally endowed musically, each spends 


124 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


the same amount of time on his work, and each 
receives the same number of points toward his 
degree; but the work of these two students can- 
not properly be compared in terms of academic 
credit, because the study of the pianoforte and 
the study of the voice are quite different matters. 
The former demands a high type of co-ordina- 
tion; the latter is comparatively simple. The 
former deals with complicated music in many 
parts struck simultaneously; the latter concerns 
itself with but one part. And yet by some pro- 
cess of academic standardization these are treated 
as similar cases. Or again, shall a student with 
a good natural voice, who finds it unnecessary 
to do a great deal of work outside his lesson 
hours, get as much credit as a student of the 
violin who, to cover a comparable amount of 
ground, must do twice the work of the first? 
Shall a natural gift like a good voice be accepted 
in place of work? Or shall a student who has 
had bad teaching before coming to college and 
who is faithfully practicing under his college in- 
structor in an effort to correct his defects be 
given credit for study while he is still on the 
minus side of achievement? Clearly, if practical 
music is to be offered, a rigid test for entrance to 


MUSIC-TEACHING IN COLLEGES 125 


this work should be given. Each student should 
be examined by three members of the Music 
Department: one, a teacher of that department 
of applied music in which the candidate intends 
to specialize (violin or voice, etc.) ; the second, a 
teacher of some other applied branch (violin, for 
example, if the candidate proposes to study 
voice); and the third, a teacher of theory or 
history. 

Furthermore, it is not possible to reduce final 
examinations in practical music to the status of 
those in other college subjects. In all other 
academic work the examination set at the end of 
the year is designed to test equally the knowledge 
of all students in the course. But in applied 
music this would be out of the question, first, 
because one is teaching individuals no two of 
whom have a like endowment or have covered an 
equal amount of ground; and, second, because 
the test is primarily one of mechanical facility 
and not knowledge. One could, of course, re- 
quire that a scale or a piece of music be played 
at a certain speed or with a certain degree of 
accuracy. But one would have to devise another 
procedure for singing, for speed is not especially 
valuable there. And to apply the test of musical 


126 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


interpretation to the examination would be futile, 
as the student could simply play the piece as his 
teacher played it, without the exercise of any 
faculty except that of imitation. 

In all strictly academic examinations, more- 
over, the element of the untried has its place in 
the form of original problems, sight-passages, 
etc. But in an examination in applied music it 
would not be a reasonable requirement to ask a 
student to read a masterpiece at sight or to per- 
form it with a few minutes’ preparation, afford- 
ing it an intelligent interpretation, since reading 
music rapidly, especially where exact and com- 
plicated co-ordination is necessary, as in the case 
of the pianoforte or organ, is largely a gift and 
is not often acquired without some natural apti- 
tude. 

Into examinations in applied music there 
enters also the element of the instructor’s sym- 
pathy for the pupil and of the pride which he, 
as a teacher, takes in the quality of his own work. 
It is very difficult for him to enter a failure after 
he has given individual attention to a pupil dur- 
ing one or more years and knows that pupil’s 
conscientious efforts to progress. What weight 
a consideration of this nature bears in the final 


MUSIC-TEACHING IN COLLEGES 127 


grading of students of applied music it is very 
difficult to say, but one must look with amaze- 
ment at a year’s record of one college where of 
four hundred and twenty-three students enrolled 
under the department of applied music only two 
failed to pass. All other questions aside, there 
is danger that students will be attracted to ap- 
plied music work not by a desire for music study, 
but by the assurance that failure is most unlikely. 

Having guarded against the acceptance of 
students unfitted for applied music work by 
means of an adequate entrance examination, we 
should standardize the final test as far as pos- 
sible. Such an examination should be given by 
persons outside the Music Department as, for 
example, from the Music Departments of other 
colleges. The test should be so arranged that 
teachers would be forced to use only the best 
material and to teach that material from the point 
of view of music appreciation. One assigned 
piece might be required to be worked out by the 
student alone within a given time. It might be 
possible for the examiners at entrance to list each 
student according to his technical advancement 
and his musical understanding. His final ex- 
amination would then be based on what would 


128 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


seem to be a reasonable amount of progress to 
be expected during the year. He would accord- 
ingly receive a new listing, upon which his next 
year’s final examination would be based. Soa 
student might be rated as Class 7, receiving at 
the end of the year a mark from A to KE. If suc- 
cessful, his classification would automatically 
advance and he would receive the next year a 
grade for work done within that classification. 

There are many problems arising out of the 
inclusion of applied music in the college curric- 
ulum, of which adequate examination is but one. 
The chief difficulty, however, lies in the funda- 
mental incompatibility of applied music with 
other college subjects; for applied music aims 
primarily to supply a physical facility, which is 
the result of mechanical motion, while other sub- 
jects offer the kind of knowledge which is based 
on intellectual exercise. It ought not to be said, 
of course, that the teaching of applied music sets 
its face against a knowledge of music, but it is 
true that whatever real acquaintance with and 
understanding of music come in the course of 
applied teaching are largely incidental; if this 
were not so, teachers could not cover the amount 
of ground demanded of them. 


MUSIC-TEACHING IN COLLEGES 129 


In learning to play the pianoforte, industry, 
not intelligence, is the chief requirement. A 
great pianist once said: “Almost anyone can 
learn to play the pianoforte, but it takes real in- 
telligence to play billiards.” This is an obvious 
truth, for to play billiards demands a knowledge 
of certain physical laws, with ingenuity and 
imagination to apply them to each situation; 
whereas, to learn to play the pianoforte may be 
compared basically with learning to use a type- 
writer. In fact, much student pianoforte-playing 
is little more than glorified typewriting. To say 
that in this country a majority of teachers of 
applied music lay stress on the inner meanings of 
the music, analyze with the student its form and 
structure, and offer him a real intellectual ap- 
proach to masterpieces through performance, is 
questionable. A teacher, no matter how con- 
scientious he may be in attempting to set forth 
the intellectual aspects of music as part of his 
instruction, is too often forced to devote a large 
part of his time to furnishing his pupils with 
finger dexterity. Moreover, with the amount of 
time ordinarily accorded music practice by the | 
-average American there is little opportunity for 
attention to anything other than technique. 


130 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


Even the conscious exercise of memory, so 
much a factor in the getting of knowledge, need 
rarely, if ever, be present in the study of applied 
music, for a student who has played a piece a 
number of times with the ‘music before him is 
frequently able to dispense with the printed page 
after apparently memorizing the notes. What 
frequently happens, however, is that the fingers 
do the “memorizing”’ and automatically strike the 
notes learned in practice; often enough, not a 
chord or a note can be summoned by memory if 
the hand fails in its mechanical task. The same 
is true of singing where songs are first learned 
by rote and then retained by ear. Thus the 
powers of memory and of ratiocination, so funda- 
mental to the kind of knowledge generally re- 
quired of the A. B. degree, are almost entirely 
lacking here, and mechanical, physical action 
actually replaces intelligent thinking. Professor 
Langfeld of the Department of Psychology at 
Princeton University described in the following 
way the difference between applied music study 
and other subjects: 


Whether we believe in general intelligence or not I 
think that in the last analysis most of us agree that the 
chief function of college education is to develop our reason- 


MUSIC-TEACHING IN COLLEGES 131 


ing power and to offer opportunities to use it. We teach 
rules, but we see to it that the student can apply such rules 
to a somewhat changed and unfamiliar situation. We 
train an animal to perform a certain act such as opening 
the door of its cage, but unless the animal can open similar 
but not identical doors, we do not consider that he is in- 
telligent. Now, I am not sure what they teach in a course 
in pianoforte playing, but I should imagine that they teach 
certain specific and even highly complicated acts, without, 
however, encouraging the students to generalize. In fact 
I do not see how generalization could come into such a 
course. And generalizing means reasoning and reasoning 
advances us on the road toward generalizing. 


The study of applied music differs, moreover, 
from other subjects of the academic curriculum 
in that it consists almost entirely in the literal 
reproduction of the ideas of some other person. 
It is not unlike the tracing of designs through 
tissue paper. The only contribution made by the 
student apart from his performance is emotional, 
not intellectual; and even his interpretation, 
when there is one, often comes directly from the 
teacher. In this, applied music is akin to public 
speaking, where, after a selection has been 
learned, gestures, voice inflections, and the like 
may be supplied by the instructor, with the result 
that the student may escape any responsibility 


132 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


except that of memorizing the text. The study 
of practical music is not like that of English 
Composition, where the student’s own thoughts 
are set forth in his own language; in applied 
music it is the composer’s and not the student’s 
thoughts and language which are uttered. Nor 
is it like translation, where ideas must be trans- 
ferred from one language to another, a procedure 
involving a number of mental processes, such as 
recollection of vocabulary, and application of 
rules of syntax. Nor is it like solving a problem, 
in which originality and imagination count for 
much. It is, in short, to a great degree, merely 
the mechanical transference of musical symbols 
into sound. | 

A comparison, then, of the physical and menta 
processes involved in applied music study and in 
strictly academic work makes it clear that the 
two kinds of effort are in no sense on an in- 
tellectual plane; because while playing and sing- 
ing may under some conditions involve a certain 
amount of intellectual activity, the element of 
progressive and logical thinking present in all 
subjects counting for the A. B. degree is almost 
entirely lacking in practical music. 

It is argued, particularly in the case of 


MUSIC-TEACHING IN COLLEGES 133 


women’s colleges, that those students who have 
an aptitude for playing or singing should be 
given an opportunity of developing this talent 
during college years; and as the requirements for 
the Bachelor’s degree make it appear impossible 
for them to pursue seriously practical music un- 
less they can receive credit for it under that 
degree, colleges are urged to put the academic 
seal upon such effort. This reasoning, it would 
seem, would have no weight whatsoever unless 
the work in question were worth counting for the 
degree; but the fact is that students can in four 
years meet the requirements for the A. B. degree, 
and at the same time occupy themselves with the 
study of applied music to an extent sufficient to 
serve as an accomplishment. Here is a plain 
question of standard. Shall American colleges 
accept work which leads to agreeable attainment, 
such as is commonly offered in high and finishing 
schools? Yes, certainly, if those accomplish- 
ments involve the student in work which in type 
and in degree conforms to the best academic 
standards; but this, I believe, is not the case. 
Practical music as an aid to culture, as a means 
for making music known and appreciated by the 
student, would be worthy to be counted for the 


134 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


A. B. degree. But a college student would have 
to be so equipped that he could without technical 
instruction from his teacher perform such music 
as was used for cultural purposes. This would 
include all music of value from the simplest to 
the most difficult. The time could then be spent 
in analysis and appreciation of the works studied, 
the technical performance by the student taken 
for granted. Such a situation would, of course, 
be ideal, for the most effective way to learn about 
music is to perform it oneself. But the supposed 
case probably never has existed and never will. 
In the meantime, the teaching of applied music 
concerns itself with fingering, wrist position, arm 
motion, time, accent, breath control, pronuncia- 
tion, posture, and all the paraphernalia of tech- 
nique essential to the student before he can per- 
form musical masterpieces. And it is exactly at 
this point, his technique well established, that his 
musical education from the college point of view 
should begin. But in much applied teaching 
practically nothing is said about the music itself, 
all the instruction being devoted to the question 
of how to perform the piece in hand. This, of 
course, is not invariably the fault of the teacher, 
for some students are so badly trained that a year 


MUSIC-TEACHING IN COLLEGES 135 


or two of technical drill is necessary to make 
them musically articulate. For a student to 
learn to count “four” evenly, and to hold the 
hands in a certain position, or how to breathe, 
or how to stand, is not, surely, work of college 
dimensions, being purely mechanical and not of 
a piece with any other academic endeavor. 

In all this consideration of the right of applied 
music to a place in the academic curriculum the 
assumption has been that the teaching material 
used was of the best. That this is not so is no 
argument against the inclusion of practical 
music, for in an educational system a defect aris- 
ing from the exercise of poor taste is not an in- 
herent but an acquired failing. The truth is that 
many teachers of playing and singing err con- 
siderably in their selection of music for study. 
Inferior music can serve but one purpose, 
namely, to teach the technique of playing or sing- 
ing, since the music has in itself no qualities of 
greatness. No language course would for one 
moment admit for study the literary parallel of 
much of the music employed for purposes of 
instruction by teachers of voice and piano. 

Now the problem of finding good material for 
students of the piano, violin, organ, or voice is 


136 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


not difficult. But there is very little good solo 
music for oboe, flute, or trumpet, and practically 
none for the harp; so that students who wish to 
learn to play these instruments must practice 
pieces of inferior musical quality, or passages 
taken out of orchestral music, studied apart from 
their context, or transcriptions, which are essen- 
tially distortions of the composer’s meaning. 
The result is that in the first case the music serves 
to injure rather than to improve the taste, and in 
the second the music gives the student a hope- 
lessly inadequate idea of the meaning and relative 
importance of the excerpt learned. A student 
practicing the first violin part of the “Ride of the 
Valkyries” would undoubtedly gain in technical 
facility, but would have no idea whatever of the 
music as a whole. mae 
Vocational study of applied music in college 
may be undertaken for two reasons: first, with a 
view to becoming a public performer; and, 
second, with the intention of becoming a teacher. 
Concerning the former one may safely say that 
the demands made upon the modern virtuoso are 
so great as to make it impossible for a student 
carrying on the remainder of his college work to 
advance himself materially in his special field. 


MUSIC-TEACHING IN COLLEGES 137 


And yet the four years of college often fall in 
the most crucial period of technical development, 
so that the college, in spite of its admitted advan- 
tages, serves to retard the student’s progress in 
his chosen work. It is, of course, possible for a 
college student to advance somewhat in the study 
of applied music during his academic course, but 
if he intends to be both college graduate and vir- 
tuoso, he should plan to spend enough years in 
the acquirement of his general education to per- 
mit him to proceed uninterruptedly to the point 
where he is ready to begin his concert career. 
The college, with its many demands, cannot logi- 
cally allow a student to spend as much time on 
practice during the ordinary college period as is 
necessary for the making of a virtuoso. Again, 
the wish to teach a subject is no argument for the 
inclusion of that subject in an academic curricu- 
lum unless the subject itself is worthy of a place 
there; and it has been made clear in previous 
paragraphs of this chapter that the status of ap- 
plied music is not such as would properly bring it 
within the area of the degree of Bachelor of Arts. 
There is no reason why one who wishes to make 
music his profession as virtuoso or teacher should 
not be expected to spend at least as much time in 


138 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


fitting himself as is demanded by any other pro- 
fession, such as law, medicine, or architecture. 
Why not, then, face the facts and assign to 
special degrees like Bachelor of Music the study 
of the applied branches? A student preparing 
himself for the practice of medicine does not ex- 
pect to acquire the necessary learning during his 
undergraduate years. At the conclusion of his 
college course he enters a professional school, re- 
ceiving at the end of his term there the degree of 
Doctor of Medicine. Why should not the same 
principle apply to the profession of music? 
While the author has no wish to present tradi- 
tion as a plea for the preservation of the custom- 
ary interpretation of the A. B. degree, and 
while he recognizes fully the importance of ap- 
plied music in the education of a musician, realiz- 
ing especially the value of offering such training 
to students in colleges situated at some distance 
from a city where good practical instruction is 
to be had; yet for the reasons previously stated 
he is persuaded that to admit applied music for 
academic degrees does not serve the best ends of 
music education, and seriously threatens the in- 
tegrity of all academic degrees for which it is 
accepted. Therefore, it would seem wise to re- 


MUSIC-TEACHING IN COLLEGES 139 


serve for academic degrees theory, history, and 
appreciation, and to assign to a conservatory all 
applied study. Such an institution, under the 
direct control of the college, presided over by a 
member of the Music Department, who would 
be responsible for a high standard of teaching, 
could offer appropriate degrees such as Bachelor 
of Music and Doctor of Music, sponsored by the 
college. Certain theoretical courses given by the 
college would be required of conservatory 
students and would count for the Mus. Bac., but 
would not, of course, count also for an A. B. 
taken by the same person. <A college student not 
registered in the conservatory could count such 
theoretical courses toward the A. B. degree and 
at the same time might avail himself of applied 
instruction in the conservatory, looking eventu- 
ally toward the degree of Mus. Bac. By the 
adoption of this plan, it would be possible to 
make just as high demands with regard to music 
education in the conservatory as are set for gen- 
eral culture within the college itself; and many 
students not regularly enrolled in the college 
would be drawn to the conservatory by the ex- 
cellence of its teaching and by the authority im- 
parted to it by its association with the college. 


140 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


The question is simply one of safeguarding the 
standard of academic degrees and of furthering 
the interests of music education by assigning 
applied music to its rightful sphere—the con- 
servatory. 


All that has been said upon the subject of 
applied music appears doubly forceful when one 
considers the disparity between the French and 
American methods of music education. In a 
letter recently received from a graduate of the 
Music Department of an American university, 
now studying music in Paris, the following com- 
parison is made: 


The normal length of a full course at the Conservatoire 
or the Schola Cantorum is eight or ten years. Thus far I 
have had four years at X University (where only one-fourth 
of your time goes to music) and by next June will have 
had three (academic) years here, the first of which can 
scarcely be taken at its face value for I spent half my time 
and more than half my energy trying to fit into an alien 
environment and a quite different point of view. And if 
the comparison is to be just, one must also take into account 
the following facts. A conservatoire class in harmony, 
counterpoint, fugue or composition has three two-hour 
sessions per week, compared to our three one-hour sessions 
at home. To be admitted to a harmony class, you must 


MUSIC-TEACHING IN COLLEGES 141 


have finished the text book work and are required to pass 
an entrance examination testing your knowledge of it. In 
America the text book work is done in class and you com- 
plete your course when you have finished your text book. 
In other words, here harmony begins at the point where 
at home it ends. Once admitted to the class you work 


3? 


at “partimenti,’ unfigured basses and melodies (from 20 
to 60 or 80 measures long), usually in instrumental style, 
which have been culled from Fenarolli and other seven- 
teenth and eighteenth century Italians and from “continuo” 
parts in Bach. Their “realization” demands extensive use 
of all the devices of imitation and a constant eye for melo- 
dious part writing. In addition, you have systematic work 
in harmonic analysis. 

You are admitted to the counterpoint classes without 
examination upon obtaining a “premier prix’ in harmony. 
Here the work done and the method of approach are 
similar to that at X, but, having twice as much time and 
picked pupils with longer preparation, the discipline is 
more rigorous and the course more complete. For example, 
in two part writing, you compose six different counter- 
points to every cantus firmus (three above and three below), 
in three part writing, nine combinations are required, etc., 
etc. The course carries you through eight part counter- 
point. 

It is quite normal to remain in the theory courses at 
least two years and often much longer, for your training 
is considered adequate only when you can sit down at the 
piano and “realize” your exercises at sight, without hesita- 
tion and with a fair degree of certainty and polish. 


142 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


Some day, I suppose, we shall resort to a similar disci- 
pline in America. We shall probably arrive at it by a 
different road and the institution which develops and hands 
it down will most likely have to take some other form 
better fitted to the situation in which we find ourselves. 
But however that may be, of this I am certain, we shall 
never make headway as rapidly as we ought to until we 
raise our standards of technical training and keep raising 
them little by little, until they are the equivalent in thor- 
oughness and severity of those in force here. 


This must not be considered an indictment of 
music-teaching in American colleges, for the 
writer of the foregoing letter would be the first 
to admit that there is frequently as much and as. 
logically ordered instruction as an academic 
Music Department can give in the time allowed. 
That such instruction is not complete, that it does 
not suffice for the music student who would edu- 
cate himself thoroughly, everyone would agree, 
for a college should never attempt to replace a 
conservatory. But the teaching might be much 
more effective if pre-college preparation in music 
- were better administered. 

In fact, to every thoughtful college instructor 
of music it must be evident that we have one duty 
above all others, namely, that of preparing 


MUSIC-TEACHING IN COLLEGES 148 


students for work as teachers in the grade and 
high schools. The college should of course main- 
tain a department of the theoretical, constructive, 
appreciative, and historical subjects, and it 
should encourage composition and foster scholar- 
ship, but unless through graduate schools of 
education an attempt is made to develop properly 
equipped teachers, the college will remain in that 
position of illogical isolation which it has so long 
occupied. Is it possible to make music educa- 
tion continuous throughout school and college? 
Yes; but only as the college determines the entire 
course and trains the teachers in the conduct of 
it. Might college music be administered for the 
many rather than for the few, as is at present the 
case? Yes; but only as the college sees to it that 
the substance and the teaching are such that 
every child has his musical chance, with the result 
that upon entering college he will not find the 
doors of music closed upon him unless he has had 
some special training in music other than that 
received in school. ‘The absence of connection 
between the music of school and college, a situa- 
tion which exists in no other academic activity, is 
lamentable, and it is the solemn duty of the col- 
lege to rectify the evil. 


144 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


The college, then, has two primary services to 
perform: first, the setting of a real standard of 
music instruction by means of entrance examina- 
tions; and second, the training of teachers who 
shall have a sound taste, a knowledge of music, 
and such a skill in imparting that knowledge as 
shall make the entrance examinations a logical 
connecting link between school and college. The | 
realization of such an ideal would look far toward 
a solution of the entire problem of American 
music education. 


CHAPTER SIX 
COLLEGE GLEE CLUBS 


WE LIVE in an age which is distinctly hostile 
to tradition. In America, at least, we judge a 
thing not by its antiquity, but by its usefulness. 
In every branch of life we see old beliefs and 
customs giving place to newer and more readily 
productive creeds and manners. But tradition, 
like every other really powerful weapon, is capa- 
ble of being employed both well and ill; it may 
safeguard us against dangerous or even fatal 
experiment, or may stand equally against logical 
progress. ‘The advancement of the art of music 
was delayed for centuries through the insistence 
of the Church on the observance of the tradi- 
tional forms and procedures of musical com- 
position; while medical science, on the other 
hand, has immeasurably benefited humanity by 
its refusal to subscribe at any time to established 
methods of practice. The inequality of my com- 
parison is obvious and intentional, and it serves to 
make clear, I think, the fundamental fact that 

145 


146 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


society is only insistent on the value of tradition 
where details of no practical use are concerned. 
Medicine, the law, business, and education— 
these touch upon life at every point, and upon 
their making themselves adaptable to the chang- 
ing needs of humanity, life in considerable 
measure depends for its success. It is the beauti- 
ful and the unserviceable thing that appeals most 
strongly to lovers of tradition. Old furniture, 
church ritual, and music certainly belong in this 
category. People will spend small fortunes in 
reconstructing old chairs, which, when renewed, 
are both too fragile and too uncomfortable to be 
of practical service to their owners. But an 
antique chair has that curious romantic quality 
dwelling in outworn and beautiful things that 
places their value far above that of the modern 
well-upholstered product. Did we, however, 
depend exclusively upon old furniture as a means 
of repose for weary bodies, our enthusiasm would 
rapidly wane and we should in short order do 
away with another revered tradition. The same 
quality of romantic suggestion lives in the 
Gregorian chant, once the musical glory of the 
Roman Catholic Church: but the Gregorian 
chant is not “practical” for the modern congre- 


COLLEGE GLEE CLUBS 147 


gation, we are told; by its rhythmlessness, it con- 
tradicts all the lay experience of generations and 
therefore requires too much time and effort in 
instruction to be feasible for congregational use. 
The modern rhythmical hymn with its easy tune 
and harmony is infinitely more useful, and so 
Gregorian chant has become a tradition, a field 
for scholarly labor, and an object for the enthu- 
siasm of those who still find it the most ‘valid of 
the musical forms associated with worship. 

Men will war bitterly over a candle or a genu- 
flection; but once the dispute touches those 
fundamental matters of spiritual security which 
lie behind the outer forms, ritual is forgotten in 
the process of debating something which really 
makes a difference in the lives of men. Ritual is 
beauty and significance, while religious convic- 
tion means the peace of mind essential to suc- 
cessful living. 

Of the three things mentioned as particularly 
subject to tradition, music is by far the most 
securely bound. This is due in part to the fact 
that the total reaction of most people to music is 
emotional; and of such reactions sentimentalities 
are quickly born. Witness the amount of in- 
credibly futile church music which survives upon 


148 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


the strength of sentimentality alone. The con- 
cert-goer welcomes the tried and familiar because 
such music glides easily along the channels of 
experience and association; but when asked to 
consider a new voice or an unfamiliar eloquence, 
he will often reject these as being “ugly” or as 
lying quite outside the realm of “music.” In 
other words, it is not essential to the health or 
happiness of most people that they should com- 
prehend the newer musical speech. For them 
music is primarily decorative; it is one of those 
useless things which are beautiful (as they con- 
ceive beauty), but which, as described by a well- 
known American, are not to be “confused with 
the more serious things of life.” 

When, in 1921, the French government invited 
the Harvard Glee Club to make a concert tour 
of France, offering at the same time a consider- 
able sum of money toward the expenses of the 
trip, a number of indignant Americans wrote to 
the newspapers, expostulating against a type of 
selfishness which would permit the acceptance of 
such a gift from a country sadly impoverished 
by the recent war. In reply, certain Frenchmen 
resident in this country explained that France 
was surely not so foolish as to expend money for 


COLLEGE GLEE CLUBS 149 


something which she did not need; that to the 
French, music is quite as much a requisite to 
health and happiness as any other great natural 
force such as water, air, or heat; and that France, 
at the moment too much occupied with physical 
adjustments to make her own choral music, was 
asking America to supply the need, establishing 
at the same time through music, the great com- 
mon language, a better understanding between 
the two nations. 

But such an idealistic view of music belongs 
decidedly to the minority, and therefore as a 
decorative non-essential it delivers itself readily 
to that class of activities upon which tradition 
sets a seal. And if in the case of music tradition 
seems to be particularly prejudiced and inflex- 
ible, it is because music by its essentially emo- 
tional quality quickly surrounds itself with senti- 
mentalities; and sentimentalities are as the breath 
of life to tradition. 

Of all the particularly American institutions 
upon which tradition has set its seal, none until 
recently has been more rooted in custom or more 
uniform in its implications than the college glee 
club. And of these implications the outstanding 
one has been of musical mediocrity. 


150 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


Now the undoubted reason for the persistent 
maintenance of low musical standards in the case 
of glee clubs has been the unquestioning convic- 
tion that a glee club is an ornamental affair, or- 
ganized primarily for purposes of good-fellow- 
ship, to perform a certain kind of music for the 
pleasure of the alumni, and to send on tour to 
American cities a group of good-looking young 
men representative of the college’s better social 
class. No one used to think of a glee club as a 
musical organization in the sense that it might 
perform good music; if alumni had believed that 
it was essential to the prestige of American col- 
leges that glee clubs should sing good music, 
pressure would long ago have been brought on 
the undergraduate to mend his ways. For it 
would have meant that so long as the particular 
college to which a certain group of alumni be- 
longed was inferior to another college in this 
respect, the mental comfort, the peace of mind 
of those graduates would have suffered; and this, 
as has been said, is something which tradition 
cannot endure. 

If it had been suggested to an alumnus fifteen 
years ago that a college glee club ought to devote 
itself to the singing of the best choral music, he 


COLLEGE GLEE CLUBS 151 


would have offered, among others, six main ob- 
jections: first, that students of college age are 
physically, musically, and emotionally incapable 
of pursuing such an ideal; second, that to force 
such a program upon students would be to de- 
prive them of the kind of music they really care 
about singing and to reduce the glee club to a 
joyless adventure in “culture” like unto college 
courses; third, that to abandon “college’’ music 
would mean that “college” songs dear to the 
heart of the alumnus would eventually fall into 
oblivion; fourth, that neither the alumni nor the 
public care enough about good music to listen 
to a program of “high-brow” pieces sung by 
students; fifth, that if an honest effort were made 
to sing only good music, it would be necessary to 
enlist the best singers, and this would result in the 
inclusion of some men who would not be a credit 
socially to the institution they represented; and, 
sixth, that a college glee club which sings good 
music is not in reality a glee club, but a choral 
society. 


For the most part, these statements are cap- 
able of being proved either true or false. With 
regard to the belief that good music is in every 


152 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


way “beyond men of college years,’ we have 
only to examine the present programs of any 
one of a number of American colleges to discover 
there examples of the highest type of choral 
music. It is, of course, a fact that even the larger 
colleges have few tenors capable of singing high 
B flat with the volume and quality possessed by 
singers of maturer years; nor do really low basses 
abound. In the best choral writing, however, 
extremes of range are comparatively rare, and 
when these are met by immature voices it is often 
possible to scale down the dynamic scheme of the 
whole piece so that high notes achieve a relative 
sonority which is quite sufficient. It is sometimes 
necessary to have college basses sing a few notes 
an octave higher than written, but it is better to 
permit this minor violence to the composer’s in- 
tention than to use music of slighter worth. 
Moreover, college tenors are capable of a sur- 
prising amount of volume, which seems to result 
from a corporate courage induced by singing en 
masse. Five high tenors with comparatively 
weak voices will, standing shoulder to shoulder 
and supported by basses, produce a degree of 
sound quite out of proportion to what one would 
expect to be the sum of their individual efforts. 


COLLEGE GLEE CLUBS 153 


From a purely physical point of view, then, there 
is no music for men’s voices which a college glee 
club cannot sing. 

The same is true in the matter of musical dif- 
ficulty. Fixperience has proved that college men 
and women are able to perform the most com- 
plicated music of any age. And the miracle is 
this, that glee clubs are made up, not of musi- 
cians, but of students of Latin, chemistry, and 
other academic subjects. Few read music 
quickly or accurately, and few possess an exact 
knowledge of note or rhythm; yet the writer has 
heard college glee clubs sing with correctness and 
understanding music which would tax the skill of 
professionals. ‘The only explanation possible is 
that young eyes and ears, taught to be quick and 
discerning in general matters, carry over their 
abilities into the field of musical performance; 
in other words, that an efficiency which is com- 
monly supposed to result from the possession of 
a particular talent such as music may result quite 
as readily from the possession of a young mind 
early trained to keen observation and indepen- 
dent action. Nor is their performance mechan- 
ical or unintelligent; for, not being singers, they 
are unconcerned about individual beauty of tone, 


154 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


placement, and breath control, but spontaneously 
express their feelings in text and music. Youth, 
imagination, and plastic intelligence will often 
yield more than professional knowledge and mu- 
sical sophistication. 

The singing of good music by some glee clubs 
is the evident answer to the argument that to take 
away from students the “good old” college song 
is to deprive them of their natural delight in 
music. As a matter of fact, if students didn’t 
prefer good music to poor, they wouldn’t sing 
good music, for membership in glee clubs is vol- 
untary. In the case of the Harvard Glee Club, 
a program devoted largely to college music called 
out perhaps a hundred candidates; whereas a 
program of good music summons between three 
and four hundred. Nor is it now necessary to 
impose fines for absence from rehearsals, as it 
was when practice was limited to music of the 
“college” type. 

Certainly the fear that devotion to good musie 
on the part of the glee club will result in the dis- 
appearance of college songs is unfounded. If 
students sing Bach and Palestrina on Monday, 
Wednesday, and Friday evening, is there any 
reason why they should not, if they wish, sing 


COLLEGE GLEE CLUBS 155 


“Seeing Nellie Home” and “Jingle Bells” on 
the remaining evenings of the week? And if 
they do not wish to do so, why should anyone 
lament the fact? Fashions change in music as in 
other things, and if the college songs of other 
days with their naive sentiment make slight ap- 
peal to the student of today, is he to be forced to 
sing them merely because his father and grand- 
father did? Or even if he prefers to sing Bach 
and Palestrina seven evenings of the week, who 
shall say him nay? The real difficulty is that 
when we talk about “college” songs we often 
mean “glee club” songs, for the singing of “col- 
lege” music, such as “Seeing Nellie Home” and 
“Jingle Bells,” was and sometimes is confined 
almost exclusively to glee clubs. Every college 
has its own particular tunes—Yale, the “Boola” 
song; Amherst, “Lord Geoffrey Amherst’; and 
Harvard, the “Marseillaise.” Obviously these 
songs have their rightful place, and every alum- 
nus and undergraduate should know and sing 
them; they will not be exterminated by an in- 
dulgence in classical choral music, for they are a 
part of the particular feeling which each man has 
for his college. As soon look for the disappear- 
ance of “The Star-spangled Banner,” because 


156 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


American choral societies are singing Handel’s 
“Messiah.” The writer cannot remember hear- 
ing an undergraduate express the fear that the 
singing of college songs would die out. Such 
sentiments spring from alumni who fear that 
something new will drive out something old, and 
often enough the “old” is a more or less well- 
preserved myth. One could probably count with 
ease the colleges in this country where large 
numbers of students have assembled regularly to 
sing college songs merely for the love of singing 
them. 

When the Harvard Glee Club goes on tour, it 
takes with it two distinct types of music: one, 
classical, the repertoire of its regular rehearsals 
and concerts; the other, Harvard songs and cer- 
tain pieces generally included under the head of 
“college” songs. ‘These two types are never 
mixed; the programs of all concerts contain only 
classical, or “‘serious,”” music, while the other is 
performed at luncheons given to the Glee Club 
by Harvard graduates in the cities where the 
club is appearing. ‘These luncheons are usually 
exclusively for Harvard men and it is only at 
such functions and at the pre-football game con- 
certs that the club uses music of the “college” 


COLLEGE GLEE CLUBS 157 


variety. Those who have heard the club sing are 
quick to see the impossibility of mixing “styles,” 
and as a result, complaints of the absence of light 
music on the Glee Club’s programs are com- 
paratively rare. 

When in 1919 the Harvard Glee Club decided 
to devote itself solely to the practice and per- 
formance of good music, the objection was raised 
that there was not a sufficiently large public to 
support such an undertaking. It is true that in 
America enthusiasm for choral singing is not 
intense, and some excellent societies have had to 
abandon the field for lack of public support. On 
the whole, however, the low birth and high mor- 
tality rates of choral bodies in this country are 
not due so much to public apathy as to the fact 
that Americans generally do not care to sing. 
And even if some kind of organization is con- 
summated, the singers are usually proffered so 
much poor music for practice that whatever pri- 
mary interest they may have had in the project 
rapidly wanes. The experience of the Harvard 
Glee Club as well as that of a number of other 
college clubs has disproved conclusively the 
theory that there is no public for the per- 
formance of good music by men’s voices. Previ- 


158 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


ous to the change in policy, the presence of an 
audience depended largely upon the quality and 
quantity of appeal to Harvard loyalty which 
could be made in a given town; whereas at 
present, schools, colleges, and conservatories, as 
well as the concert-going public, are interested; 
and the club, instead of asking for a money 
guaranty from Harvard Clubs, and supporting 
its finances by means of a dance at the conclusion 
of the concert, pays its own way and relies solely 
on artistic merit for patronage. From every 
point of view this policy has justified itself. 

One of the fallacies most difficult to overcome 
is the idea that to sing good music, cultivated 
voices are demanded. As a matter of fact, a 
chorus of untrained singers may be taught to 
produce an amazingly good tone. For in such 
a case the material is plastic, and unprejudiced 
by any systems of breathing or tone-production; 
the singers do not consider themselves above 
choral singing, but perceive that much knowl- 
edge and not a little good may come to them- 
selves through faithful attendance and intelligent 
practice. It is possible to take an organization 
of two hundred or more students, and by explain- 
ing certain simple principles, including pronun- 


COLLEGE GLEE CLUBS 159 


ciation and breathing, transform it into a highly 
capable chorus. A chorus of this kind is not an 
aggregation of solo voices, but a body of willing 
young men or women, each striving to become a 
part of the whole. Obviously, however, to seek 
the most intelligent and interested persons means 
to include in the chorus many who would not be 
chosen, were good looks or social technique the 
criterion of selection; but to reject an interested 
singer because he is not considered “typical” of 
his college or because he abounds not in social 
graces, is to put an immediate premium on poor 
singing. 

The question is simply this, “For what does a 
glee club exist?” It may exist to include agree- 
able, well-born young gentlemen who may be 
taught to sing a few pieces, but whose chief func- 
tion is to go about the country, concealing the 
fact (which is true of every college worth the 
name) that the majority of students are not of 
the so-called “upper” class, and to attract still 
younger well-born young gentlemen to enroll in 
their college. Or it may exist to include the best 
singers of the institution, whatever their race, 
creed, or color, and to practice the highest forms 


160 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


of choral composition. Now if the former be the 
correct interpretation, then the organization has 
no historical right to the name “glee” club; for 
Grove’s “Dictionary of Music and Musicians” 
clearly states that the first public meeting of the 
original glee club was held in England in 1787, 
and that after a dinner attended by the members, 
“motets, madrigals, glees, canons, and catches” 
were sung. Among the members were some of 
the distinguished English musicians of that time, 
as well as amateurs. It is stated that the open- 
ing glee was invariably “Glorious Apollo,” com- 
posed by Samuel Webbe, while Byrd’s canon, 
“Non Nobis,’ and Dr. Cooke’s “Amen” canon 
were also sung. Although such celebrated 
musicians as Mendelssohn and Moscheles some- 
times bore active part in the meetings of a later 
day, there is no record that the contemporary 
counterpart of the banjo and mandolin assisted, 
_or that vaudeville acts served to vary the enter- 
tainment. Nor was a “glee” necessarily a joyful 
piece of music; some were grave and even 
melancholy. 

It would seem, then, that we had strayed rather 
far from the truth in designating most of our 


COLLEGE GLEE CLUBS 161 


college singing societies “glee” clubs, since their 
purpose and practice is very far from that of the 
original; and in insisting that a college organiza- 
tion which is devoted to the study of good music 
should be limited to the designation of “choral 
society” instead of “glee club,” since a choral 
society is in reality any aggregation of singers, 
male or female, assembled to sing music, good, 
bad, or indifferent. On the other hand, any 
chorus, at least of men, which is given over to the 
study of good music has the unquestioned right 
based upon historical fact to call itself a glee club. 

Granted a serious musical purpose, it is obvi- 
ously impossible to present a convincing program 
consisting of good choral music and pieces by 
banjos and mandolins. Under such a scheme no 
artistic unity maintains. ‘There is, perhaps, no 
purely physical reason why these instruments 
should not perform a Bach gavotte or a slow 
movement of Beethoven, provided such pieces 
were arranged; but it is simply not in banjos 
and mandolins to make good music “sound’’; the 
only variety possible for them is a dynamic one, 
and as they really belong among the instruments 
of percussion, their very manner of producing 


162 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA’ 


tone is against expressiveness.. Great music ex- 
presses emotions of every type and most of these 
are hopelessly foreign to the mandolin and banjo. 

The one plausible objection to the exclusive 
use of good music by a glee club is that worth- 
while music originally written for men’s voices 
exists in such small quantities as to limit hope- 
lessly the field of choice. Much music for male 
choruses is notoriously weak because the rich- 
ness and sonority of the medium, as well as the 
very limited range possible between high tenors 
and low basses, result in the selection of harmony 
rather than counterpoint by composers; and this 
harmony is too frequently of the sentimental and 
highly colored type. ‘To a conductor faced with 
the dilemma of selecting music, there are three 
courses open: first, to give up the whole project 
because of the insufficient amount of reputable 
material; second, to compromise on a mixture 
of good and poor; and, third, to arrange for 
men’s voices pieces written for other choral 
media. The latter would seem to be the only 
solution which may be conscientiously reached, 


1No just comparison exists between the mandolin and the 
pianoforte; the latter has a wide range and is capable through 
mechanical aids of producing varied qualities of tone and divers 
musical effects. 


COLLEGE GLEE CLUBS 163 


although it is admittedly faulty. For no tran- 
scription for men’s voices of a piece originally 
composed for mixed voices or women’s voices 
really conveys the composer’s whole intention; 
something is lost in transition, and the honest 
musician will recognize the inadequacy of such 
arrangements. But far better this course than 
to give up glee clubs altogether or to encourage 
bad musical taste by the use of inferior works. 


A stimulating force for better glee-club music 
has lately appeared in the form of the Intercol- 
legiate Glee Club Contests. These contests, held 
in various centers of the country, bring together 
glee clubs from different colleges to compete for 
a silver cup. One piece which is agreed upon by 
all the clubs and sung by each contesting organ- 
ization is called the “prize’”’ song, and this selec- 
tion is invariably of sound musical quality. Two 
other pieces are sung: one, a so-called “light” 
piece, such as a Morley madrigal; and the other 
a “college” song. ‘The contest is valuable chiefly 
in that it requires each club to learn at least one 
piece of good music annually, and this, though 
it seems a slight achievement, is, in reality, of 
great importance; for from an experience of one 


164 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


fine composition may be generated a desire to 
sing more like it. 

But there is great danger that the glee-club 
contest will emphasize considerations quite be- 
side the main issue. For example, some clubs 
look forward to the “meet” as the event of the 
year; for them, learning to sing good music is a 
means to an end, and if the judges do not award 
them the cup, there is bitterness and disappoint- 
ment; the year for them has been wasted. Every 
club should have such a broad program of 
work and such varied musical interests that the 
contest would be but one incident among others 
in a season devoted to progressive study and 
accomplishment. 

Furthermore, the fact that the affair is a “‘con- 
test” and that the participants represent colleges, 
leads many to treat the occasion with the finality 
they usually accord an athletic encounter. It is 
evident, of course, that there can be no com- 
parison between the two; for in most athletic con- 
tests, nobody’s opinion as to which team is the 
better makes any difference. One team scores 
more goals or runs than another, and that team 
consequently wins. In the opinion of the referees 
the losing team may have played better than the 


_COLLEGE GLEE CLUBS 165 


winner, but facts, not opinion, govern the result. 
In a glee-club contest three persons whose judg- 
ment is considered more reliable than that of the 
average listener are asked to grade ten to four- 
teen clubs, each one of which sings its pieces. 
Each piece is accorded a mark by the judges, 
the ratings are added, and the choice declared. 
No two judges may agree as to the supremacy 
of any one club, but an assimilation of all the 
markings indicates the selection. Persons in the 
audience, equally competent as critics, may and 
do disagree. ‘There are no absolute standards 
of choral singing or orchestral playing. One 
has only to read the reviews of the same choral 
concert by eminent critics to see how divergent 
may be expert opinion as to what is good and 
what is bad singing. So that to “win” an inter- 
collegiate glee-club contest means simply that in 
the averaged opinion of three judges, one club 
sings better than the others. To assume, then, 
that the chosen club is actually superior to the 
other clubs in the sense that a winning team is 
superior to a defeated team is manifestly untrue. 


Tf one discards the “play” theory of glee clubs 
(and of college orchestras as well), and believes 


166 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


that these organizations are capable of serious 
accomplishment, there is, it seems to me, but one 
possible ideal and that an educational one. To 
many, such an ideal will suggest the relinquish- 
ment of any joy in singing, and the employment 
of stern disciplinary tactics to prevent revolt 
against so arduous a program, with consequent 
falling-off in numbers. It need only be said that 
this ideal, founded in good music, does maintain, 
in at least one university, the interest and enthu- 
siasm of two hundred and fifty college singers of 
whom perhaps 5 per cent have previously been 
trained in music; that many of these cherish 
slight hope of reward in the form of concert 
appearances or trips; that attendance is main- 
tained at a very high average of regularity; that 
the wisdom of adhering to the ideal is never ques- 
tioned by men who have been for any length of 
time members of the club; and that the present 
policy makes it possible to offer every year pro- 
- grams of good choral music to school children 
and to the public. 

The newer type of glee club, both in men’s 
and in women’s colleges, has from every point of 
view passed the experimental stage. Its success 
is assured. No longer need those concerned with 


COLLEGE GLEE CLUBS 167 


the welfare of college musical organizations em- 
bark upon an adventure of faith; nor need they 
bow to the voices of the past. For there is a new 
tradition—the tradition of educational and ar- 
tistic achievement. 


CHAPTER SEVEN 
MUSIC IN THE COMMUNITY 


IF THERE is absence of continuity between the 
grades of organized music education, the hiatus 
which exists between the college and the com- 
munity, or, as is very often the case, between the 
secondary school and the community, is hardly 
to be bridged over; for unless in his youth he 
shall have in some way contracted the music 
habit, either as performer or as listener, the 
adult, engrossed in the practical business of life, 
will hardly begin to cultivate his sense of beauty. 
Even the formal disciplines of his school years 
will be lacking; no period of twenty minutes each 
day, when, perforce, he must be at least in the 
presence of music. Quite naturally he will pick 
up his novel or evening paper, reading to the 
agreeable accompaniment of the radio. 

Why should he pay to attend a concert in 
which he is not interested, when he can enjoy 
himself more at home? Or why should he go to 
a rehearsal of the local chorus or orchestra, when 

168 


MUSIC IN_THE COMMUNITY 169 


the music bores him and the whole procedure 
recalls the stupid hours of “choral singing” which 
were inflicted on him in high school? To be sure, 
comparatively few possess sufficient skill or 
leisure for practice to permit them to join or- 
chestras of even amateur rating, and the neces- 
sity for assembling instruments of divers sorts 
makes the possibility of maintaining many such 
organizations doubtful. Numbers of people play 
the piano and the violin fairly well, but few play 
the oboe or the French horn well enough to admit 
them to orchestral standing. Singing, on the 
other hand, is such a simple thing that until we 
have analyzed the musical development of a per- 
son from childhood to man’s estate, we are 
amazed that every American city does not sup- 
port its score of community choruses. But the 
American people are sincere: in their youth they 
found no great joy in singing, and as men and 
~ women they will not affect one; for it is in school 
years that “the will to sing’”’ must be formed, and 
this, as has often been stated in the foregoing 
chapters, our systems of music education have 
failed to do. 

With our admiration for the expert and the 
professional standard we hesitate to commit our- 


170 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


selves to an undertaking which from the point of 
view of finish promises so little as does the aver- 
age community musical enterprise. ‘The oper- 
ettas of Gilbert and Sullivan make no serious 
demands on the abilities of the average amateur 
and offer admirable opportunity for the vocal, 
instrumental, and dramatic talents of any com- 
munity; but most of us prefer to see them “well 
done” rather than to experience the joy of even 
moderately successful participation. It would 
surprise many of us to learn what satisfaction 
there is in singing. William Byrd, England’s 
musical genius of the sixteenth century, recog- 
nized the advantages of vocal exercise, which he 


records in the preface to his “Psalms, Sonets 
and Songs of Sadnes and Pietie” as 


Reasons briefely set downe by th’ auctor, to perswade 
euery one to learne to singe: 

First, it is a knowledge easely taught, and quickly 
learned, where there is a good Master, and an apt Scoller. 

2. The exercise of singing is delightfull to Nature, and 
good to preserue the health of Man. 

8. It doth strengthen all parts of the brest, and doth 
open the pipes. 

4. It is a singuler good remedie for a stutting and 
stamering in the speech. 


MUSIC IN THE COMMUNITY 171 


5. It is the best meanes to procure a perfect pronuncia- 
tion, and to make a good Orator. 

6. It is the onely way to know where Nature hath 
bestowed the benefit of a good voyce; which guift is so 
rare, as there is not one among a thousand, that hath it; 
and in many, that excellent guift is lost, because they want 
Art to express Nature. 

7. There is not any Musicke of Instruments whatsoeuer, 
comparable to that which is made of the voyces of Men, 
where the voyces are good, and the same well sorted and 
ordered. 

8. The better the voyce is, the meeter it is to honour and 
serue God there-with: and the voyce of man is chiefely 
to be imployed to that ende. 


Since singing is so good a thing, 
I wish all men would learne to singe. 


But the England of Byrd’s day was a singing 
country and no doubt almost everyone was per- 
suaded of the truth of his recommendations. 
With us it is useless to urge singing on any 
grounds, because it appears more satisfactory to 
let some one do it for us. Now this indifference 
to singing, this absence of the will to co-operate 
in musical exercise of any kind, has resulted in 
the employment of many motives as a basis for 
the encouragement of community music. One 
of the most commonly used is the patriotic 


172 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA) 


motive, founded in the belief that if love for one’s 
country, expressed in musical terms, be sub- 
stituted for a natural desire to sing, something 
in the way of a community chorus will result. 
The war proved conclusively how futile was such 
a substitution; for while no one will deny the 
excellence of singing in war time as an inspiring 
and heartening force, it is none the less a tem- 
porary means. Singing did much to create unity 
in crowds, to give such vent to patriotic feeling as 
in no other way might have been possible; but the 
whole effect was bound to be only spectacular 
and temporary. One recollects the occasions 
when the entire nation was asked to arise at two 
o'clock in the afternoon and unite once more in 
a foredoomed assault on the vocal ramparts of 
the “Star-spangled Banner.” Such incidents 
recall the following story from “The Autocrat 
of the Breakfast-Table”’: 


Once on a time, a notion was started, that if all the people 
in the world would shout at once, it might be heard in the 
moon. So the projectors agreed it should be done in just 
ten years. Some thousand shiploads of chronometers were 
distributed to the selectmen and other great folks of all 
the different nations. For a year beforehand, nothing else 
was talked about but the awful noise that was to be made 


MUSIC IN THE COMMUNITY 173 


on the great occasion. When the time came, everybody had 
their ears so wide open, to hear the universal ejaculation of 
Boo,—the word agreed upon,—that nobody spoke except a 
deaf man in one of the Fejee Islands, and a woman in 
Pekin, so that the world was never so still since the 
creation. 


A second motive is found in the argument that 
choral singing offers a strong stimulus to com- 
munity feeling. The much-used “get together” 
slogan has been invoked in behalf of music. Cer- 
tainly this principle is on the surface sound, since 
singing is the one co-operative exercise in which 
large numbers of people may take part. Not all 
may talk at once and be understood; not all may 
play the same game together; but all may sing. 
Nor does this mean only those who sing well, 
but also those who sing very little or even badly, 
for the net result of singing by a crowd of poor 
voices is often surprisingly good. And, in any 
case, the value of the effort will not depend upon 
a critical estimate of the performance, but rather 
upon whether or not the chorus shall have sung 
good music with enjoyment. ‘The “get together” 
motive, however, will not long sustain a chorus; 
every community is at base an aggregation of 
individuals, and if these do not have separately 


174 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


the “will to sing,” no appeal on behalf of unity 
or co-operation will serve to supply that lack. 

A third motive is contained in the belief that 
if one can get a crowd to sing, it can be kept at 
least temporarily contented. This conviction 
often induces industrial managers to organize 
choruses and bands among their employees. 
Such a use of music is worthy, but, like so 
many other projects, it will fail unless there is 
offered something other than the mere oppor- 
tunity for self-expression and the enjoyment 
of the company of one’s fellows. Except for 
the foreigner, whose experience has persuaded 
him of the value of singing, few industrial 
workers will be drawn to the idea of a com- 
munity chorus, because, being ignorant of the 
satisfaction of music, they will seek other and 
tried methods of diversion. 

Now none of the motives mentioned has en- 
dowed community singing with anything like 
permanence. Clearly, some more profound, 
more engrossing ideal must be found before 
Americans will turn spontaneously to choral ex- 
ercise; and that bond, the only conceivable one, 
is a love for good music. Upon no other foun- 
dation is it possible to preserve the life of a 


MUSIC IN THE COMMUNITY 175 


chorus. When we consider how signally our 
music education has failed to furnish an impetus 
for interest in music during adult years, it is 
little less than amazing that we could be so 
shortsighted as to suppose that any secondary 
motives could supply progress and permanence. 
How commonly one hears the remark, “It is the 
leader who makes a chorus.” Nothing could be 
more untrue. The leader does not supply the 
power; he merely transmits the force from music 
to chorus, and his success will often depend not 
upon his ability to impress his personality on 
singers, but rather upon his submerging himself 
in the music. From this point of view, at least, 
community singing is improving, for we are moy- 
ing beyond the hat-over-the-eye and joke-out- 
of-the-corner-of-the-mouth type of leader, whose 
antics it was foolishly thought might hold the 
crowd together, in favor of the musician who 
seeks not to make himself but the music con- 
spicuous. Indeed, it is the music which first and 
last must furnish the motivation for any com- 
munity chorus; to adopt any other ideal as the 
basis of organization is to invite disaster. 

Some years ago, in the course of reading a 
story which had to do with life in an American 


176 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


city, I came across a paragraph which seemed 
to me to illustrate excellently an oblique view of 
the object of community singing, which even 
now after many failures still obsesses many of 
us. The story is laid during the war, and re- 
cords a sudden and unexplained outburst of mu- 
sical activity on the part of numbers of citizens. 


Editors dilated upon the new social phenomenon that 
brought together in unity of spirit and action the most 
divergent elements of the city’s population. And inci- 
dentally, it was of value to sing, because spirits were 
thereby kept up, and even though the words of many of 
the songs were trivial, to be sure, there was a psychological 
value in the united efforts of the populace. 


There, in a few words of fiction, may be found 
the truth about our failure; for “social phe- 
nomenon” and “psychological value” are not 
music, nor are they necessarily lasting. More- 
over, the quality of the music, which is the only 
really important factor, is not spoken of; only 
the texts of the songs are mentioned. As a mat- 
ter of fact, most of these “social phenomena” 
have died of inanition, while the much-touted 
“psychological value” fell considerably below 
par even during the war. | 


MUSIC IN THE COMMUNITY 177 


The assumption of those in charge of com- 
munity singing is that the patience of the aver- 
age community chorus will support only third- 
rate music. “You must give them what they 
want” is the cry. Now, it is a fact that there 
exists quite as much good music which is at- 
tractive as there is inferior; but there is this dif- 
ference, that while it is possible to maintain the 
interest of a chorus with good music, it cannot 
be done with poor any more than life can be 
sustained upon food which is merely pleasing 
but which does not nourish. 

The whole question of the selection of music 
for adults is too often settled on the basis of 
what we believe will be popular. It would, how- 
ever, be quite as fair to assume that one would 
prefer chocolate éclairs to roast beef merely be- 
cause one has never had the opportunity of eating 
the latter; both are agreeable to the taste, but 
one is a dessert and the other a staple. Art, no 
less than life, presents a multitude of choices, 
and the consummation of our attitude toward 
either art or life rests in our recognition of the 
presence of this variety and the direction toward 
which our preferences turn. It is not deplor- 
able that we know inferior music, but it is tragic 


178 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


that so many of us are limited to that knowledge, 
in that we have such slight opportunity of com- 
ing into first-hand contact with any other. 
Music is very much like individuals; some 
pieces are acquaintances, some are friends—de- 
pending on their qualities. So-called “popu- 
lar” music resembles acquaintances—those who 
come casually into our lives, who attract us for 
the moment, but who, having no power of sus- 
tained interest, pass out of our ken to make way 
for others like them. They leave no marked 
impress upon us, nor do they represent charac- 
ter, which is the cross-section running through 
every conceivable relation. | Musical master- 
pieces, on the other hand, are friends. As is so 
often true with human beings, their great and 
enduring qualities, their beauty of character, are 
not at once apparent, but grow on us with each 
new hearing until they become a very part of 
our lives. Years might pass without the oppor- 
tunity of hearing a Brahms or a Beethoven Sym- 
phony; but if these were ever truly known and 
loved, no space of time would ever prevent a 
recollection of their sound, and the mere con- 
sciousness that they exist for us would never fail 
to yield us happiness. ‘The “Passion Accord- 


MUSIC IN THE COMMUNITY 179 


ing to St. Matthew” was buried for a hundred 
years or more after Bach’s death, but if it had 
not been discovered for a thousand years more, 
it would still be great, for its sublime and moyv- 
ing eloquence cannot be bounded by time. How 
terrible would be a world made up only of 
acquaintances; a world without continuity or 
repose! Yetno less terrible is a world which con- 
cerns itself only with the superficial and ephem- 
eral music: the sentimental ballad, always sense- 
lessly emotional, always eager to weep over one; 
or jazz and the “comic” song, always snickering, 
or slapping one on the back, or playing jokes on 
one. In life, acquaintance is the natural back- 
ground of friendship, and in the field of music 
the popular type may well serve as a legitimate 
contrast to the classical; but the complete ar- 
tistic experience will contain both and will ac- 
cord each its due place. 

The term “popular music,” however, seems to 
me to be misleading; for to be “popular” means, 
first, “of the people”; and surely no one would 
claim that the sophisticated emanations from 
Broadway, or the saccharine products of our 
ballad writers either originate with or character- 
ize the American people. If this were the case, 


180 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


our national character would indeed be in a 
sorry plight. ‘The truth is rather that “popu- 
lar’ as we use it in connection with music means 
“commonly accepted’’—by all means not neces- 
sarily “gladly accepted”; but we shall have to 
put both kinds of music to the test before we can 
assume that the one or the other type is in that 
sense really “popular.” 

In the meantime we need not be alarmed lest 
our people lack acquaintance with the more su- 
perficial forms of music; these are everywhere 
about us and are inescapable. Educators some- 
times argue that taste can be established only by 
providing an opportunity for the comparison of 
good and poor styles through the deliberate use 
of both. However effective such a method may 
be in other fields, there is nothing to commend 
it in this instance, for from childhood to old age 
the American is deluged with inferior music; he 
gets it in school, in church, and in the dance hall, 
and he can look forward with assurance to being 
buried to music in its lowest estate. 

Like the word “popular,” the term “com- 
munity” is often wrongly interpreted where 
music is concerned. We too frequently con- 
sider a community as a large group of people 


MUSIC IN THE COMMUNITY 181 


dwelling in some city or town. To be exact, the 
word “community” means the spirit underlying 
a movement, rather than the numbers actually 
engaged. A few people gathered with some 
semblance of regularity to sing, a string quartet 
or half a dozen amateur instrumentalists, a club 
assembled from time to time to discuss music 
and to further musical work — these are to a 
greater extent “community” musical gatherings 
than the heterogeneous and loosely organized 
crowds which meet occasionally to celebrate 
some national feast day. 

But we have not that sense of the social qual- 
ity of music, which prompts us to gather even in 
small groups for musical purposes, or to sing 
spontaneously when assembled on occasions of 
friendly intercourse. Consider the customs of 
Elizabethan England, when it was no more than 
a gentleman’s part to join in the general singing 
which took place at social functions. Nor was 
this haphazard singing, but rather an effort re- 
quiring skill and knowledge. The plight of an 
unprepared guest is described by Mr. ‘Thomas 
Morley, excellent madrigalist of the sixteenth 
century, in his “Plaine and Easy Introduction 
to Musicke”: 


182 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


Supper being ended and music books being brought to 
table, the mistress of the house presented me with a part, 
earnestly requesting me to sing; but when, after many 
excuses, I protested unfainedly that I could not, everyone 
began to wonder. Yea, some whispered to others, demand- 
ing how I was brought up, so that upon shame of mine 
ignorance, I goe now to seek out mine old friend Master 
Gnorimus, to make myself his scholler. 


Such an exhibition of inefficiency on the part 
of a dinner guest in any American city in 1925 
would be taken for granted; in fact, to sing 
heartily and with enjoyment would quite prob- 
ably be viewed as a mark of eccentricity. 

One of the most eloquent replies to the charge 
that the public prefers poor music, as well as a 
demonstration of what may be done by way of 
community service by a comparatively small 
group, may be seen in the work of the People’s 
Symphony Orchestra of Boston. Here is an 
organization of professional musicians drawn 
largely from theater orchestras, who give their 
time and energy to the frequent rehearsal of 
excellent orchestral music. And they do this for 
two reasons: first, that they may themselves 
practice a better field of music than is opened to 
them in their daily occupation; and, second, that 


MUSIC IN THE COMMUNITY 183 


the public may for a comparatively small admis- 
sion fee share in their enjoyment. For a num- 
ber of years the work has been carried on with 
admirable devotion, often at an actual pecuniary 
loss in lessons omitted and in more remunerative 
tasks sacrificed for the good of the orchestra. 
Both conductors and players have given freely 
of strength and skill, and if their reward is not 
to be stated in terms of money, it is surely to be 
found in the fact that Sunday after Sunday their 
concert-room is crowded with an enthusiastic au- 
dience, composed largely of men. ‘This in a 
country where the quality of music is too often 
reckoned to be feminine rather than masculine 
is indeed a triumph. Might these musicians not 
have argued that people really prefer poor 
music, and so either have offered “popular” pro- 
grams or have pursued exclusively the more 
financially profitable sphere of their daily tasks? 
They might, indeed, but they had, above all, 
faith, and their faith has justified itself. 


Community music has too long been con- 
trolled by those whose interest in good music has 
been slight and whose distrust in human nature 
has been profound. Their aim has been to amuse 


184 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


rather than to stimulate, and they, too, have 
had their answer in the practical collapse of a 
community artificially promoted. Like so many 
educators, they proclaim aloud their good inten- 
tions: “Things will be better later on: you must 
reach people first through music which is imme- 
diately attractive; then you can raise the stand- 
ards little by little.’ We have heard these and 
other such excuses for long; but small evidence, 
if any, appears to support the contention that 
the golden age is at hand. 

There is no avoiding the truth which lies at the 
root of the present status of community music; 
namely, that all our efforts to increase musical 
interest among adults are at best superficial and 
halfway measures, which do not strike at the 
real base of the problem. This is indeed no ar- 
gument for surrender; for any activity in the 
right direction is better than inertia; but to gain 
a permanent musical community we must begin 
at the beginning. Interest in singing and play- 
ing, and attendance at concerts, grow naturally 
from a progressive experience of music, gained 
in childhood and continued into adult years. 
Only from a logical and patient ideal of music 
education such as may see hardly a beginning 


MUSIC IN THE COMMUNITY 185 


in this generation, will develop a music-loving 
people. And when that is achieved we shall not 
have to beg for the support of music, or urge 
people to attend concerts, or join choruses and 
orchestras: we will not permit ourselves to be 
herded on a green to fumble with our hats, while 
our songs are sung for us by “the Argentines, 
the Portuguese, and the Greeks,” as a contem- 
porary song has it; nor will we sing to please a 
conductor or a municipal committee, but to ex- 
press and interpret our own emotions when and 
where we wish. 

But in America, as in other countries, eager- 
ness to take part in music will be but the outer 
manifestation of an active inner musical life, 
from which may spring not only musical com- 
munities, but folk songs and composers and vir- 
tuosi and intelligent music-lovers. First, how- 
ever, we must admit our own shortcomings, and, 
in humility, adopt what is best from the tradition 
and experience of older nations. Second, we 
must be satisfied with “first things first,” seeking 
no short cuts to achievement—for none are pos- 
sible in the artistic growth of a nation—scorning 
the superficial and the spectacular, content to 


186 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


accomplish with thoroughness each step in mu- 
sical development. Third, we must demand a 
more accurate and a more extensive musician- 
ship in our teachers, involving taste, technical 
knowledge, and an inclusive understanding of 
the classics. The proper training of teachers 
and supervisors is, indeed, the most vitally im- 
portant problem to be solved, and in its solution 
lies the answer to our future musical course as a 
nation. Fourth, we must not make the mistake 
of assuming that mechanical proficiency or tech- 
nical ability is the same thing as musicalness. 
And last, we must be willing to believe what we 
already know, that good music will triumph 
where faith in its validity and skill in presenta- 
tion are part of the teacher’s equipment. 

The promise of a musical future is before us. 
In many parts of our country appear evidences 
of increasing wisdom in dealing with the prob- 
lems of music teaching, and schools and com- 
munities in increasing numbers are bearing ac- 
tive witness to this fact. Too long we have lis- 
tened to the prophets of mediocrity and the 
apostles of compromise. Theirs is the deadening 
cry, “Give people what they want”; but the true 


- MUSIC IN THE COMMUNITY 187 


educator is he who ministers not to the wants, 
but to the needs of men. When as a country we 
perceive this fact clearly, with all the sacrifices 
it involves, we may look forward with confidence 
to taking our place among music-loving nations. 


APPENDIX A 
HARVARD UNIVERSITY 


GRADUATE ScHOOL oF EDUCATION 


Examination for Entrance into Courses 
in the Teaching of Music 


I. Dictation: 


Melodies 1 and 2 (see Music Sheet No.1). Each 
melody will be played through once, after which a 
phrase of it at a time will be played twice. When 
the entire melody has been written, it will be played 
through once more, and a moment given for cor- 
rections, if necessary. 


II. Appreciation: 


A. Listening. 

Compositions 1 and 2. The compositions used 

at this examination were: Gavotte and Musette 

from 8rd English Suite (Bach), and Inter- 

mezzo, Opus 117, No. 1 (Brahms). Each one 

will be played twice, and will be described, in 

writing, by the candidates in the following 

ways: 

a. Type of composition. (If the composition 
falls into one of the easily identifiable 

188 


APPENDIX A 189 


classes—such as Gavotte, Minuet, Canon, 
or Waltz.) 


. The form as a whole. 


The mode, major or minor, and a change 
of mode if such occurs. 


. The composer, if possible, or the period in 


which it was written. 

Any interesting characteristics, such as the 
recurrence of certain motives, striking 
features of the rhythm and the accompani- 
ment (if there are any), imitations. 


B. Reading. (The time given to this will be limited 
to thirty minutes.) | 
Sonata, Opus 14, No. 2, by Beethoven: first 
movement only. 


a, 


Describe the form as a whole, and also its 
sections. 


. Locate each theme and each section; name 


it with reference to the form as a whole; 
and state at what measure it commences 
and to what measure it extends. 


. What especially interesting features, such 


as striking qualities of a theme or of its 
development, recurrences, changes of key or 


mode, do you observe in each section? 


C. Knowledge. (The time given to this will be 
limited to twenty-five minutes. ) 


Name and describe briefly the various types 


of form in music, from the folk song to the 


symphony. Give examples. 


190 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 








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APPENDIX A 





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192 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


III. Harmony (see Music Sheet No. 1): 
The candidate is expected to show a knowledge of 
harmony through the inversions of secondary 


sevenths. 
INDIVIDUAL TESTS 


IV. Singing: 
Two or three folk songs to be sung unaccompanied, 
from memory. 

V. Sight singing (see Music Sheet No. 1): 

Two unison melodies and the alto of a two-part 
song while the soprano is being played. 

VI. Pianoforte playing: At least one composition selected 
by the student. 

VII. Sight playing (reading): 

(The requirement at this examination was a Minuet 
in G minor by Bach.) 


APPENDIX B 


REPORT OF THE COMMISSION FOR THE 
CONSIDERATION OF MUSIC AS A 
COLLEGE ENTRANCE SUBJECT 


Suaeestep ReQuiIREMENTsS FoR CoLLEGE ENTRANCE 
EXAMINATIONS IN Music 


Appreciation and History of Music: 


(a) Familiarity with the essential esthetic principles 
of music, and ability to define the aim and scope 
of the chief types, such as Classic, Romantic, and 
Program music. (A list of Program music is given 
on page 202.) 

Music is primarily not objective and repre- 
sentative, like painting, but subjective and pre- 
sentative. It works, not from ideas, like poetry, 
but from emotional states directly induced. 

Within the field of music, however, we distin- 
guish classic or pure music, in which the inter- 
pretation of the emotions thus aroused is left to 
the individual listener, from romantic and from 
program music, in which a specific mood or even 
a highly detailed story is prescribed by a title or 
even by a particularized “program.” It is im- 
portant to note that in all these types the effect 

198 


194 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


is due chiefly to the purely musical beauty and 
interests of the texture of tones, which is subject 
to the laws of musical form and to follow which 
alertly and actively is the chief aim of the in- 
telligent music-lover. This aim is defeated by 
reverie and day-dream, and even more by the 
conscious elaboration of “‘stories’”’ fitted more or 
less arbitrarily to the music. 

Students will be expected to be able to state 
simply, in their own words, the principles of 
musical expression as set forth in the first chapter 
of Parry’s Evolution of the Art of Music, or in 
the chapter “Romanticism and Realism in Music” 
in Mason’s Great Modern Composers. 


(b) Ability to answer questions, such as are indicated 
below in section (c), on the following periods in the 
development of music: 


1. Ecclesiastical Modes 

2. Early Polyphony 

3. Choral Music (sacred and secular) of the 
sixteenth century 

4, Early Oratorio 

5. Bach and Handel 

6. Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven 

7. Schubert and Mendelssohn 

8. Schumann and Chopin 


The questions, 80 per cent of which will deal with 
the music of the eighteenth and nineteenth cen- 
turies, will involve study of compositions selected 


APPENDIX B 195 


from the list given on pages 196-201. Each year 


the Board of Examiners will select from this list 


compositions to be studied in detail. 


(c) Specimen questions: 


1. Write a short essay on the origin, racial char- 


acteristics, and influence of the folk song. 


2. Describe the difference between Polyphonic and 


Harmonic styles, illustrating from _ specific 
compositions. 


3. Describe in the following ways a short classical 


a. 


composition (not ultramodern) after hearing 
it played several times: 


Type of composition. (If the composition 
falls into one of the easily identifiable classes— 
such as Gavotte, Minuet, Sarabande, Canon, 
Fugue, or Theme and Variations.) 


. The form as a whole. 


The mode, major or minor, and a change of 
mode if such occurs. 


. The composer, if possible, or the period in 


which the composition was written. 

Any interesting characteristics, such as inver- 
sion of theme, sequence, extended cadence, 
pedal point, persistence of a rhythmic formula, 
imitation. 


4. Describe various ways in which themes are 


developed, illustrating from specific compo- 


sitions. 


5. Write a short essay on Bach to include sketch of 


196 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


life and description of his style and his relation 
to the time in which he lived. 

6. Write a short essay on Handel to include sketch 
of life and description of his style, with par- 
ticular reference to the Oratorio. 

7. Write similar essays on other great composers. 

(All these essays should be reinforced by references to 


actual compositions. ) 


LIST OF COMPOSITIONS FOR COURSES IN 
APPRECIATION 


(It is understood that these compositions, or movements 
from them, are to be presented without “cuts.’’) 

All compositions starred may be obtained on phonograph 
records. 


Ecclesiastical Modes 
This period may be illustrated by any folk songs in 
the modes or by simple Gregorian chants. 


Early Polyphony 
Examples of early polyphony will be found in 
Volume I of the Oxford History of Music and in 
Volume XIII of The Art of Music (D. G. Mason, ed., 
John Church Co.). 


Choral Music of the Sixteenth Century 
This period may be illustrated by the choral works of 
Palestrina, Vittoria, and others, such as the Adora- 
mus Te and the Popule meus * of Palestrina and the 
Iesu Dulcis Memoria of Vittoria; by English madri- 


APPENDIX B 197 


gals of Morley, Weelkes, Dowland, and others; by the 
chorales of the German Reformation; and by the 
madrigals of Lassus such as ‘‘Matona, Lovely 
Maiden.” 
Early Oratorio 
This period may be illustrated by works such as “The 
Seven Last Words” of Schiitz, and “Jeptha’” by 
Carissimi. 
Bach: 
Two- and Three-voice Inventions 
French Suite No. 1 
Chorales 
Well-tempered Clavichord 
Prelude No. 8 in C # major Book 1 
Prelude No. 4 in C # minor Book 1 
Prelude in B flat minor Book 1 
Fugue No. 16 in G minor Book 2 
Fugue No. 2 in C minor Book 2 
Organ Compositions 
Choral Prelude: Herzlich thut mich Verlangen 
(Peters Book V, No. 27) 
Great Fantasia in G minor or Prelude in B minor 
Toccata and Fugue in D minor (not the Dorian) 
Orchestral Suite in D Major 
Concerto for two Violins 
St. Matthew’s Passion: 
Recit. No. 2: When Jesus Had Finished 
Choral No. 3: O Blessed Jesu 
Aria No. 12: Bleed and Break 
Chorus No. 78: Here yet Awhile (last part) 


198 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


Handel: 
Suite No. 5 
Messiah: 
Chorus No. 4: And the Glory * 
Aria No. 9: O Thou that tellest * 
Rect. No. 29: Thy rebuke * 
Aria No. 30: Behold and see * 
(other Messiah records available) 
Semele: 
O sleep, why dost thou leave me? 
Haydn: 


Sonata in C major 
Surprise Symphony (Cheap edition: Homeyer, 
Boston) 
Military Symphony * 
Oxford Symphony 
Quartet in D major, opus 64, No. 5 
Allegro Moderato * 
Adagio Cantabile * 
One quartet from opus 76 or 77 
Variations in F minor 


Mozart: 
Rondo in A minor 
Symphony in G minor * 
Symphony in E flat major * 
Symphony in C major, first movement 
Quartet in D major * 


Quartet in G major * 
Finale * 


APPENDIX B 199 


Quartet in D minor 
Minuetto * 
Quartet in E flat 
Minuetto * 
Requiem Mass 
Beethoven: 
Sonata in D major, opus 10, No. 3: second movement 
Sonata Pathétique, opus 13 
Sonata, opus 31, No. 3: first and third movements 
Six variations, opus 34 
Thirty-two Variations in C minor 
Symphony No. 1, Finale * 
Symphony No. 5 * 
Symphony No. 6: 2 movements * 
Symphony No. 7: 1 movement * 
Symphony No. 8: 3 movements * 
Quartet in A major 
Theme and Variations * 
Mendelssohn: 
Variations Sérieuses 
Hebrides Overture 
Midsummer Night’s Dream: 
Overture * 
Scherzo * 
Elijah 
Chorus No. 1: Help! Lord 
Chorus No. 5: Yet doth the Lord 
Aria No. 21: Hear Ye, Israel * 
Aria No. 26: It is enough * 
(Other Elijah records available) 


200 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


Songs Without Words 
Schubert: 

Du bist die Ruh’ * 

Erl-Konig * 

Der Wanderer * 

Hark, Hark the Lark * 

Der Doppelganger 

Am Meer 

Heidenréslein 

Auf dem Wasser zu Singen 

Tod und das Madchen 

Der Leiermann 

Unfinished Symphony in B minor 

Quartet, Z'od und das Madchen: variations 
Schumann: 

Carnaval 

Grillen 

Des Abends Fantasiestiicke (all in one volume) 

Aufschwung 

Warum 

Friihlingsnacht * 

Widmung 

Im wunderschénen Monat Mai 

Mondnacht * 

Du bist wie eine Blume * 

Quartet in A minor * 

Scherzo 
Quartet in A major * 
Assai agitato 
Manfred Overture 


APPENDIX B 201 


Sonata in G minor, first movement 
Sonata in F # minor, second movement 
Chopin: 
Nocturnes 
F # major, opus 15, No. 2 
C minor, opus 48, No. 1 
Ballades 
G minor 
A flat major 
Etudes 
E major, opus 10, No. 3 
A flat major, opus 10, No. 10 
F major, opus 25, No. 3 
A flat major, opus 25, No. 1 
G flat, opus 25, No. 9 
B minor, opus 25, No. 10 
Préludes 
C major, opus 28, No. 1 
A flat major, opus 28, No. 17 and No. 21 
Polonaises 
F # minor, opus 44 
C minor 
Mazurkas 
C # minor, opus 6, No. 2 
C major, opus 56, No. 2 
Sonata in B flat minor, opus 35, first movement 
Scherzo in B flat minor, opus 31 
Fantaisie in F minor, opus 49 
To this list may be added various early quartets and 
trios from which students themselves could play move- 


202 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


ments, in arrangements for pianoforte, if original 


impossible. 


LIST OF PROGRAM MUSIC 


Beethoven: Coriolanus Overture 
Pastoral Symphony 
Liszt: Les Préludes 
Mendelssohn: Hebrides Overture 
Midsummer Night’s Dream 
Rimsky-Korsakoff: Scheherazade 
Strauss: Don Juan * 
Tschaikowsky: Romeo and Juliet Overture 
Wagner: Lohengrin Overture 


LIST OF BOOKS FOR COURSES IN 
APPRECIATION 


Colles: The Growth of Music 

Dickinson: The Study of the History of Music 

Gilman: Stories of Symphonic Music 

Grove: Beethoven and His Nine Symphonies 
Dictionary of Music and Musicians 

Hadow: Studies in Modern Music 

Krehbiel: How to Listen to Music 

Mason: Beethoven and His Forerunners 
Great Modern Composers 
Guide to Music 
The Romantic Composers 

Parry: Evolution of the Art of Music 
Studies of Great Composers 


APPENDIX B 203 


Rolland: Some Musicians of Former Days 
Surette and Mason: Appreciation of Music (2 vols.) 
Upton: The Standard Symphonies 


(Fuller Maitland, editor) Oxford History of Music 
(6 vols.) 


(D. G. Mason, editor) The Art of Music (14 vols.) 


APPENDIX C 


REPORT OF THE COMMISSION FOR THE 
CONSIDERATION OF MUSIC AS A COLLEGE 
ENTRANCE SUBJECT 


Suaaestep REQUIREMENTS FoR COLLEGE ENTRANCE 


EXAMINATIONS IN Music 


Ear Training and Elementary Theory 


(Questions under a, b, c, and h would be pre- 
sented as oral questions to each candidate) : 


(a) Ability to sing (this is not intended as a test of 


(b) 


vocal virtuosity) without accompaniment, in time, in 
tune, and with musical intelligence, 5 folk songs, one 
verse only, selected from the music of the following 
nations: America (such as the tunes of Stephen C. 
Foster), Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, 
Norway, Sweden, and Spain. (Not more than one 
from each nation.) 

Ability to tap on desk the time values of the notes 
of mixed rhythmic formulas written on blackboard. 
(see Music Sheet No. 2.) 


(c) Ability to sing with intelligence after brief study an 


unaccompanied melody of not too great difficulty in 

any key or rhythm in the bass or treble clef, the 

key-note only being given. Examples of such melo- 

dies would be: any folk tune or any melody from 

Mendelssohn, Schubert, Schumann, or Brahms, con- 
204 


(d) 


APPENDIX C 205 


taining only commonly used chromatics and simple 
modulations. 

Ability to sing with intelligence after brief study a 
simple second part to a given melody while that 
melody is being played upon the piano. (see Music 
Sheet No. 2.) 


(e) Ability to write out any major or usual minor scale 


played or sung. (The key-note will be given; then 
the scale will be played, ascending and descending. 
The student is to write the scale, first placing the 
necessary accidentals beside the notes, then writing 
the signature.) 


(f) Ability to name any major, minor, augmented, or 


(g) 


(h) 


diminished interval (melodic or harmonic) played 
or sung. (Groups of two intervals will be played; 
the candidate to write the name of each of the two. 
Where the first of the two intervals is a dissonance, 
the other will be the interval of resolution.) 
Ability to identify by name the principal triads in 
major or minor. (A chorale, a phrase or a period 
[non-modulating] will be played several times; the 
student to write the Roman numeral of each of the 
chords in the order in which they occur.) 

Ability to beat time correctly in the following 
meters: 2/4, 3/4, 4/4, 6/8, both slow and fast. 


(i) Ability to transcribe on music paper a melody played 


to the candidate, such a melody to be of the same 
difficulty as those described in (c) and some of the 
less complicated instrumental melodies of Bach, 
Beethoven, Handel, and others. 


206 MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 
MUSIC SHEET No. 2. 





APPENDIX D 
HARVARD UNIVERSITY 


Music 3a (three hours ) 


I. Write on any three of the following topics. Answers, 
to be valuable, must be accompanied by specific illus- 
trations drawn from music. 

(a) Modern text treatment. 

(b) A history of the balance of interest between 
chorus and orchestra. ; 

(c) The revival of church music. 

(d) Modality as a Romantic means. 

(e) The two basic practical difficulties of modern 
choral style. 

(f) Church music of the eighteenth century. 

II. Six excerpts from pieces sung by the class during the 

year will be played. Ascribe to each its title and 
composer, together with the period in which each 
selection was written. 
(The composers represented were Tschaikowsky, Des 
Prés, Schumann, Schiitz, Brahms, and Hassler. In 
no case did the excerpts include the opening measures 
of any piece.) 

III. Ascribe to each of the nine printed excerpts its com- 
poser or school, together with the period in which 
each excerpt was written. Support your decisions 

207 


208 


MUSIC EDUCATION IN AMERICA 


with reasons, and comment on any details of style, 
technique, or text treatment you consider worthy of 
note. 

(The composers represented were Byrd, J. Haydn, 
Kastalsky, J. S. Bach, Roussel, H. Purcell, Holst, 
Handel, and Mendelssohn.) 


IV. Nine choral excerpts will be played. 


(a) Ascribe to each its composer, school, or period. 

(b) Identify the style in which it is written (har- 
monic or contrapuntal). 

(c) Comment on any technical points of interest. 

(The composers represented were Este, Gretchaninov, 

Vittoria, Schumann, Palestrina, Goss, Taneiev, Lotti; 

and a Reformation Chorale was also used.) 


In Questions II, III, and IV the excerpts were usually 
from sixteen to thirty-two measures in length. 
Final. 1925. 






































